I love painting but I hate that making a living from it means I have to push the edges of my own sanity before I get to the “living” part. Living requires money. I’m a Libra, which apparently means I’m all about something called “balance.” In fact, I’m so airy-logical that I don’t believe in crazy […]

So, can you really make a living at it? I get asked this a lot. There’s a perception that unless you’re supporting yourself entirely on art, you’re not professional. That’s not true. Then there’s that old perception that all artists must starve for their art, and unfortunately there is some truth to that. The word […]

So I was thinking about measurement. In the latter phase of my corporate life, we used a lot of Six Sigma philosophy. It’s a business management strategy that reduces (“sums”) people, things, and processes to numbers and stats in order to measure productivity, effectiveness, and — ultimately — perfection. See, as long as you’re dealing […]

Like any job, being an artist has its share of procrastination. My work pattern was always predictable: stress goes up, I produce… stress goes down, I screw around. This pattern hasn’t varied with my career change. I’ll confess that I spent a few days in the studio where I didn’t do anything especially productive. Moreover, […]

So my first month as a full-time artist seemed to go well despite my inability to fulfill my socializing quota. I sold a few pieces plus some image reproduction rights, had a show up in Kamloops, met a bunch of artists, and was feeling pretty good about everything. I’m up! Then I looked at the […]

I really hate the socializing aspect of art life. I suck at mixing. I am just not outgoing enough, weird enough, and ultimately not interesting enough to stand out in (or better yet, blend in with) a crowd of artists. Went to some opening show tonight. I walked in and immediately felt overdressed and uncool […]