It was 2002. My book, Writing The Artist Statement: Revealing the True Spirit of Your Work had been published and I was flummoxed. How could I get it into your hands?
Websites were just revving up on this new-fangled thing called the Internet, so I headed over to a small college and found some “kids” to create a web page to sell the book directly from my publisher.
Because I thought the new-fangled (more…)
It turns out that my local Apple-approved repair shop couldn’t sell me a computer because Apple was “hoarding” their supplies. Even though I ordered three days after my computer died, Apple had an 8-week backlog.
EIGHT weeks…no computer. (more…)
I have this pattern of disappearing and reappearing. You get emails from me, blog posts, a few events/products, and then I’m gone again.
Is it my generation (growing up with kerosene lamps and candles, running cold water (no hot) instead of computers, cell phones and instant information access anytime anywhere)?
Or is it a function of (more…)
I remember when my mother was dying. I was getting ready for my orals in graduate school and the one thing I 
couldn’t have imagined, since all mothers are invincible, is that my healthy, vivacious, 83-year-old, artist mother would die.
Time stood still as the nurse put me through to her hospital room.
Only, the woman who answered (more…)
I suspect this question is so deeply personal that it’s like a fingerprint: each of us will respond from the life conditions that have shaped each of us, and shape us still.
There is strong folklore about the value of the suffering artist to her art; that dark times allow for greatness. Personally, I’m not so sure it’s a useful way to look at suffering.
I suspect some of us are (more…)
