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Over the last ten plus years, I have put in my 10,000 hours to better understand what drives artists to do what they do and how to create a school that teaches people to have fun and make compelling artwork. Along the way, I have also learned about the unique and challenging experiences that Black…
Some of my favorite contemporary paintings are in many ways more than just paintings. Quite often they are collages, or assemblages of materials of unrelated objects that help to make the finished artworks look more complex than the simple flat finish created by a typical painting. For example, Zach Harris makes wooden paintings. Cut, shaped…
Ten years ago, I threw my whole body into studying contemporary art. While I was trying to decode what made the art of that moment different, one of the first emerging artists that piqued my interest was Eddie Martinez. I remember going to a bunch of art fairs and thinking that his work really stood…
“The process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative”. Inspiration is such a powerful word. You seemingly can’t have any great accomplishment, creative or not, without profound and clear inspiration and quite often, the most compelling concepts are learned directly from others. While I have been consistently…
I captured this photo last night as the sunset was creating a constantly changing, kaleidoscopic picture of the sky. I was watching TV and when I saw what was happening out of the corner of my eye, I sprang off my couch and ran outside with no jacket as if I was a kid joining…
The phrase “begin with the end in mind” is something I often fall back on when I am challenged with working on a creative project or figuring out a task. I can make an argument that this is the single most important thing for building strategy…and that can be for making art or raising…
I was shocked and saddened when I learned of Tony Hsieh’s death this weekend. While I never met Tony, I watched him share his stories about Zappos over the years and viewed him as an artist whose medium was building people centric business experiences. In 2010, I read Tony Hsieh’s book called “Delivering Happiness” and…
What a year. Regardless of what has happened and what will happen as we move through the balance of 2020 and into 2021, I find myself deeply focused on summoning gratitude for what life has provided me and making sure I share my heartfelt thanks for all of the support we have received at One…
As an educator and art collector, I am motivated to share more about the artists that jump out at me and one of my favorite artists, Brian Calvin, recently opened a show in New York at the Anton Kern Gallery. Brian Calvin (born in 1969 in Visalia, California) is an American artist who lives and works…
Bob Ross. Mention his name and a smile appears on the face of almost everyone who has encountered his “Joy of Painting” shows from the 80’s. Notwithstanding that we share the same name (and I rocked my own serious fro back in the day) Bob and I are not related, but he actually did have…