Category Archives: craft

Living sculpture

Back in the day, I was a pretty serious gardener. I led a garden group at a large suburban church and cared for my own plants. My schedule during the past few years has nixed that. In many ways gardening is exactly like painting. All the same skills, just different materials. My favorite garden task is […]

A crack in the façade

This summer, I’ve found myself saying, “I’m more tired than I’ve ever been,” and then moving on to discover new frontiers of exhaustion. Last night I hit the limit. While profoundly thankful that my daughter is on a (rapid) road to recovery, I’ve also used burned through energy resources to emergency resources to scrape-the-bottom-of-the-barrel resources. […]

My pochade box, two years later

Recently I received this email from a reader asking about the cheap, light and easy pochade box I made at the start of my 2014 painting season: I came across your posting describing the making of your lightweight pochade, and would like to make one.  I’m not sure how long it’s been since you made yours, […]

Death of an artist

Laura Miner is an art historian at New York University. We were lamenting the death of painter Nelson Shanks this week. Shanks taught at the Art Students League and the National Academy. Although I never studied with him, I was certainly familiar with his work. Nobody can question his ability, his discipline, his drafting or […]

Photographic promiscuity

There was a time when I was very interested in photography. I learned how to shoot pictures when one used an external meter and instructions on the box. My dad was a photographer during WWII. He had a darkroom in the basement, and I loved messing around in it. My husband was as keenly interested […]