Family mystery
My great-grandfather Ramey had a fierce personality. Even in his 90’s, he had no time for nonsense, epically from unruly children such as me. My grandmother ascribed her father’s fierceness…
Ragged easel
My Utrecht easel has served me well. True, it’s held together with glue and clamps, but it still handles the large-size paintings that I make. One thing the easel lacks…
Who needs culture anyway?
One of the biggest shocks of my life and one of my biggest disappointments occurred when I went to France for the first time in 1993. France! home of great…
Good day
I couldn’t wait to get started today. Problems are simply opportunities and everything is possible. You know what I’m talking about? I put aside some large designs that have been…
Stiff
Stiff paint, stiff muscles, stiff brain. This describes my afternoon. I finished a painting this morning and celebrated with a piece of pumpkin pie leftover from Thanksgiving. Back in the…
Working quietly in the corner
In Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage, the protagonist studies painting for two years in an atelier school in Paris. At the end of that time, he screws up his courage…
Twin peeks
Making multiple versions of a painting is an interesting exercise. The intent isn’t to produce copies, but, rather, to create variations on a theme. It is especially useful for students.…
Don’t go to art school
Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, likes to say that degrees from the nonprestigious schools are just expensive dunce caps. He means that today higher education is close to worthless,…