A psychology professor named Angela Duckworth wrote in the New York Times about a phenomenon she calls situational agency. She means that willpower is not what works to get yourself to resist temptation, or to do something you know you should. Instead, successful people create a structure around themselves that minimizes the need for willpower. […]
Some ideas seem to get recycled regularly, perhaps because they actually make a lot of sense. This one harked way back to my corporate days. The terminology was different, but the intent was the same – to help you focus on what really matters. A recent article in Entrepreneur talked about the idea of a […]
Frighteningly enough, the name that keeps coming to mind for me lately is Margaret Atwood. Her Handmaiden’s Tale and similar novels about not-to-distant, very scary futures have been running through my head, try as I might to ignore our dysfunctional and divisive politics. The notion that behavior for which we’d send a five-year-old to his […]
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 […]
Our recent bout with COVID had me realizing how lucky we are to rarely get sick, to have flexibility in our work, and to have healthy food readily available. I am grateful for the vaccines that made our cases relatively mild and for the masks that prevented my unknowingly infecting others. I’m especially thankful for […]
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 […]
Staying safely at home has given me time for long-envisioned projects. One of those is going through old scrapbooks and photo albums, my pandemic archeology project. Clearing them out will leave more room in my closet for shoes and hats – a noble cause, I thought. LOL These materials date back to my school years, […]
Many people believe that “right-brained” folks are more intuitive and creative, and “left-brained” are more analytic (they could probably fix my cut-off image here!) and logical. For years I bought into that, and proudly claimed to be both. Turns out everybody is. Both brain hemispheres are involved in language and perception, with different specialties like […]
Humans are wired to crave new experiences and sensations, but everybody has different degrees of tolerance. Some want to try the newest gadget or restaurant, while others need exotic travel or extreme sports. Sensation seeking is not the same as thrill seeking; it doesn’t always involve climbing skyscrapers or jumping out of planes. It’s actually […]
Usually a trip to another country is required to refill my creative well, inspiring me to capture the energy and scenery of a new place that I can share in paintings. Sometimes, though, inspiration is closer to home, in sunsets over the water near my studio. And once in a while I need reminding about […]
