Need a bit of uplifting? Perhaps some useful information about stress management, food, health, or how to focus? Perhaps you’d like a brief diversion by way of travel memories? Or simply something colorful to cheer, soothe or distract you? My blog will do the trick. It’s ostensibly about art, and sometimes I do write about […]
Being a great believer in challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone and stretch my brain, I took a class in palette knife painting last month. It was apparently part of a self-improvement kick, as I also took a refresher class on perspective drawing. I figured it would be useful both for the […]
Turns out travel doesn’t have to be international to inspire me to paint. This lesson apparently had to be relearned from the last time we spent a month in New York City, pre-pandemic. That resulted in a series of cityscapes, from Radio City to the Village. This time, we rented an apartment for January and […]
A friend’s email signature contained this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, which I loved: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” Good advice, and there are certainly things I’ve watched others do that made me vow to never do the same; I call them negative role models. […]
For people who know Chicago, the Marina Towers condo on the river is instantly recognizable and popularly known as Corncob Towers, for its shape. For those who don’t, a photo or, in this case, a painting, could be confusing. Let me digress a bit and provide some background. While attending graduate school in Indiana, I […]
Research cited in Psychology Today suggests that how long you live is partly determined by how you think about aging. An interesting longitudinal study tracked adults for 23 years, measuring mortality and asking about their perceptions of aging. Turns out that people who had positive perceptions of aging lived longer than those who didn’t. This […]
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was a junior in college who talked my way into a graduate seminar in environmental psychology. In my 20 year old brain, this was a great way to unite two loves, art and psych. More than my previous attempts – as an art major, then in […]
Most of us have heard the term Nimby – not in my back yard. And most of us would like to believe we are more open-minded and welcoming than it suggests, even though we often live in towns with restrictive zoning rules. What struck me as ironic is the realization that many of us seek […]
Milton Glaser, the graphic designer who created the iconic I Love NY image that uses a heart for the word love, died recently. Thanks to his passion, he was working until the end, well into his 90s. An interview shortly before his death included some insights about creativity and New York City that resonated for […]
Way back when, I took a grad seminar in environmental psychology. At the time, the field was focused on how we found our way around in the world. Lately it has crossed into architecture and interior design, in recognition of the built environment’s impact on our health, thinking and socializing. Thousands of years ago, humans […]
