On Trump, Canada, and Art

I’ve been going through a difficult time artistically for the last three months or so. My last painting, which I started on October 25th, was much more difficult than it …

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Trip to Amsterdam, January 2025

Recently, I was in Amsterdam with my spouse for two weeks. It was a bit of an extravagance. I had read an article saying that Amsterdam now has more vegan …

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Van Gogh and the Darkening of Oil Paintings

Yesterday, I visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which has the world’s largest collection of Van Gogh’s drawings and paintings. Perhaps because some of the paintings were sent to …

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A Leap of Faith

Since despair is not conducive to making good art, I normally do my best to avoid reading about the goings on in the art world. Occasionally, however, I end up …

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What Being an Artist Meant to Van Gogh

Yesterday, just a little over two weeks after posting about artistic lust, I happened upon the following paragraph in a letter Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1882: …

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The Critical Mindset

It has become natural in recent years to approach everything with a critical mindset. People seem to think that just appreciating something is too simpleminded and that being critical of …

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The “Lust” of the Artist

A few years ago, I happened across the following paragraph in Nietzsche’s “The Gay Science”. (I hesitate to refer to this book, which contains passages of vile anti-Semitism and sexism. …

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“What Kind of Art Do You Do?”

I am not a very social person. I seem social, since I like people and am warm and friendly; but I rarely go to social events, since I never seem …

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