Creative Musings

"Only art penetrates ... the seeming realities of this world," said Saul Bellow. "There is another reality, the genuine one, which we lose sight of. This other reality is always sending us hints, which without art, we can't receive." For me, the most important part of my creative process is making connections. It helps me make sense of things. When I paint or write something, I usually don't know what it's really about until long after I've completed it. Some works come and go quickly; some...

Anyone who "has" to create knows that feeling of not being able to. After awhile, everything feels "off." You get restless, irritable, hungry for something you can't quite find. It's like staring into an empty refrigerator. But the solution is easy: all you have to do is create something, and relief floods in. Every artist knows this feeling. These days, scientists can prove it, too. "Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us" by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross shares current studies on the...

Sometimes, life just sucks. I write this from Chicago O'Hare airport, where I've de-planed the second time today due to maintenance issues. This place is a zoo. Wall-to-wall people, stress in the air, trash all over the floor from the detritus of holiday travel. On top of that, I'm sick. The DayQuil I had to take to survive this trip makes me feel like a Warhol print—slightly off-register, not quite in my body. On the way to visit my mom earlier this week, the second flight was cancelled due...

Yesterday, I researched software platforms to help me organize my work tasks. Normally, I simply write lists to-do on post-its. That way, I can see them all day, and since I write super-small, it feels manageable. The problem with that system is that I just ignore the lists. And so, my desk is littered with post-its full of unfinished tasks. I thought that since I use digital frameworks for so many different things—communication, meetings, scheduling, class delivery, design ideas, etc. — I...

This is what it's like to grow up with an artist mom… She drags you and your brother to art galleries and museums wherever you go, never kid-friendly places like theme parks or shopping malls. You won't appreciate it until adulthood. To keep you busy while she paints, she plunks you down in front of a vat of papier maché stuff. Or candle dipping. Or a pile of colored pencils. Anything but the television, which she can't stand the sound of. She doesn't mind when you drape sheets over the...

As I sit by the campfire, listening to music, with the gentle sounds of the Big Sur River in the background, it occurs to me that art making is an attempt to simulate what Creative Intelligence does every second of every day. To maybe feel an ounce of what it's like to be God (Nature/Evolution). Today, my partner and I hiked down to Partington Beach from the 1, making our way through rock formations laced with wildflowers, following a creek to where it poured into the bay. Everywhere was...

Those of you who have spent time with me in person know that Phoebe Rose is always by my side. She goes to meetings with me. She sleeps on my head at night. She naps on my lap while I work on my computer. While I paint in my studio, she waits on the couch behind me until I'm done, then she jumps down and follows me back into the house. "Yes? What do you want?" And yet I've never painted a portrait of her! The closest I've gotten is to include her in my St Francis Mandala Prayer painting among...

This weekend, my partner and I took the Airstream out. We went to our favorite park near Pescadero, overlooking the ocean, and spent both days doing whatever we wanted to do next. No plans, no "shoulds," no news. Just empty time, which we filled with adventures in Nature. It was exactly what I needed. And something magical came out of this, which I'll tell you about in a minute. A remote surfer's beach we found off the beaten path. Years ago, my writing teacher Adele gave us an assignment to...

A core tenet of Conceptual Art is that “the idea is the art.” From Duchamp to Warhol to Hirst, artists have been challenging the notions of art as a representational medium. What began as an intellectual challenge has taken over the art world. Nothing gains traction in today’s art “market” without having the idea as its primary driver. Concept is king. Technical skills and emotional resonance are secondary. A painting I did for TDS in 2001 I used to view this with contempt. To me, art is...