The tale of a stretcher

This will probably be a long drawn out shaggy dog (because cats aren’t shaggy) story but bear with me. I was reorganizing my studio, trying to improve my storage situation. These days, a large painting for me is around 40 x 60 inches, the biggest size I can easily transport. When I was much younger, I worked ridiculously large – like 4 1/2 feet by…

Fear of bad art

The most debilitating thing from a creative point of view is what I call “fear of bad art.” It’s when, rather than make some piece of art that turns out badly, you’d rather make nothing at all. Guess what: that means you’re doomed to never make anything. You might as well admit it now and start selling your paints. Fear of bad art is really…

Titles

Once upon a time, I liked coming up with what I considered at the time “clever” titles. I aspired to have them be poetic, quirky, enigmatic, witty. At the time I was painting these big abstract color field paintings (this was circa 1974). Sample title from my undergraduate days: “Possessing not the dancer’s grace, I turn instead to wine.” Oh I loved that title. Better,…