topic > making art

on boredom

December 03, 2020 in Art as a professiontopics:,

An art student wrote to me today, and described how she was started to get bored with a project she was working on, and lacked the motivation to continue with it. Yeah, boredom can be a part of being an artist. We’re often told that…  read more


About the art: Intermezzo

November 24, 2020 in About my arttopics:, , ,

An art student just asked me some questions about this photograph. They were such good, interesting questions, I wanted to share my answers with you all. Is there a story or meaning behind this photograph? The meaning of a photograph usually comes out after I…  read more


kicking and screaming to make art

February 05, 2014 in Art as a professiontopics:

Last week, the writer and actor Wil Wheaton discussed some of the difficulties behind creating. He described how his friend Cory can just sit down and effortlessly write, while for him, it is a slower and more challenging process. We have all known people like…  read more


don’t worry about being deep

October 31, 2013 in Art as a professiontopics:,

I was on an online forum recently where a young photographer was asking if one photo of his was any good: he wanted to know if it “made a statement” or if it was just “eye-candy”. I replied that it isn’t so simple. A photograph…  read more


Bach said it best

May 16, 2012 in Art as a professiontopics:,

I was just browsing through Ted Orland’s excellent book Art and Fear, and came apon this great quote from Johann Sebastian Bach. After he wrote a set of training pieces, Bach said that he wrote the music to: “…glorify God, to edify my neighbor, and…  read more


shut up and make art

March 11, 2010 in Art as a professiontopics:, ,

Every once and a while I need to remind myself of something important. That the primary job of an artist is… to create art. It’s not marketing, social networking, nor applying for shows. My job is to sit in that studio, and sweating out new…  read more


back to making new art

June 05, 2008 in About my art & Art as a professiontopics:,

This morning I started work on some new photographs. This is the first time in months that I’ve worked on anything new, and it feels good. The past few months have kept me very busy. A good kind of busy, getting things done that needed…  read more


art for the eyes and ears

April 03, 2008 in Art as a professiontopics:,

In my last post, I ranted a bit about how artists are expected to be “deep”, while musicians are allowed to just play. Zak commented that he thought this could be because of a key difference between visual art and music: “…music takes place over…  read more


telepathy and art

November 03, 2007 in Art as a professiontopics:, ,

In science fiction, whenever a character develops the ability to hear other people’s thoughts, they go through an intense struggle to control their gift. If their telepathy is left unchecked, outside thoughts constantly flood in from all around, and they get overwhelmed with all the…  read more


The morality of a photo

September 22, 2006 in Art as a professiontopics:

There is a conversation happening over at The Online Photographer about a Daguerreotype that Jerry Spagnoli took of 9/11. It is a haunting, spooky, and unsettling look at a scene we have all (unforunately) seen over and over. His use of the Daguerreotype forces you…  read more