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 recent article in Psychology Today addressed so-called weak social ties and their surprising importance to our emotional and physical health. Turns out that chatting with the mailman, being recognized in a favorite store, or even laughing with a stranger in line can improve your well-being. And, of course, you can be the one who […]
Dorothy Parker and her sharp wit are well known, but here’s a quote I hadn’t heard before. “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” This explains one of the main reasons for my travels. I have an unquenchable urge to see and experience new things, whether tapas and flamenco in […]
Travel always inspires me to paint, and I’m very grateful for the opportunity. The combination of new experiences and unusual sights (and, ultimately, the urge to be home) usually sends me into my studio. I get all pumped up, with hundreds of reference photos for inspiration. We just returned from a trip to Belgium and […]
It’s been a challenging year and my energy for painting was in short supply, so I was thrilled when the urge hit me, strongly, this month. Here’s how it goes. First I sort through my photos thinking about what to paint. Next I have a phase where I try a few thumbnail sketches to test […]
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. […]
According to John Steinbeck, quoted in the Economist, “Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.” Steinbeck was talking about writing, while the Economist article discussed the concept in relation to technological advances building on each other. I believe it applies equally […]
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 […]
