Eccentricity of Artists Boosts Appreciation of Their Art
How much one enjoys a painting or a pop song should, in theory, have nothing to do with its creator’s personality. But newly published research finds the degree to which we appreciate an artist’s work...
View ArticleShould You Really Make Your Passion Your Job?
In our current start up-obsessed moment, aspiring to have a job that already exists seems almost unfashionable. The true goal of meaningful employment, or so the aspirational entrepreneurial culture...
View ArticleCulture Creep: How and Why We Separate the Artist From the Art
The first Woody Allen movie I ever saw was Manhattan. It was 2004, I was 14 years old, and less than a minute into the intro (a black-and-white cityscape of New York City set to “Rhapsody in Blue”) I...
View ArticleLock Up Your Daughters: An Interview With Ralph Steadman
Ralph Steadman is watching Columbo when I call him at his home in Kent. It’s a Thursday in early March, and Robert Vaughn is today’s villain, but Steadman is more concerned with defending his honor....
View ArticleHow Do You Make a Living, Fine-Art Photographer?
For 40 years, Stephan Brigidi has been juggling: artistic and commercial photography, book publishing, teaching, and more, all to pay the bills and stay ahead of the bills. The Rhode Island School of...
View ArticleCan You Learn to Judge Creativity?
Once every four years, Americans gather around their television screens to partake in a national pastime, delivering brash, passionate opinions on a topic they barely understand—Olympic figure skating....
View ArticleThe Myth of the Artist’s Creative Routine
Charles Dickens wrote while blindfolded. Virginia Woolf took three baths a day, and always with ice-cold water. Stephen King eats a blood orange at every meal whenever he is working on a book. Joyce...
View ArticleThe Best Museum Is a Home
Every city and every town has its own storied homes and grand estates. When the families who built these homes can no longer afford them or no longer have heirs to inhabit them, they sometimes become...
View ArticleArtists Working Solo Create the Finest Work—or So We Believe
Art is very often a collaborative endeavor. Yet the paintings, poems, and piano pieces we esteem most highly are almost always attributed to a single creator. So is there something special about work...
View ArticleArt Museums Foster an Appreciation for Ambiguity
How do you judge a work of art? Last week, we presented evidence that the assumptions we make about its creation play a role in our evaluation, with points given for an artist’s perceived hard work....
View ArticleAre Artists Created in the (Testosterone-Rich) Womb?
Why certain people become artists is a question that perplexes evolutionary theorists, who see no obvious way that making art helps perpetuate the species. While their attempts to explain this apparent...
View ArticleDesigners Can Help Save the Planet
Earlier this spring I took a look at the draft of the National Climate Change Assessment, which was posted online for public comment. I felt discouraged, and not for the obvious reasons—I expected the...
View ArticleWhat Is the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Made?
I, like many a writer, have an unpublished novel just sitting in a file on my computer. Its working title is With this Ring, and it’s about a con artist who steals cars via his car wash...
View ArticleMaking Art Boosts Seniors’ Psychological Resilience
If you’re approaching retirement, you’ll be facing some difficult issues, even if your finances are in order. Fundamental concerns inevitably arise, including “What shall I do with my time?” and “How...
View ArticleSpectators of the Orient: Kara Walker and a History of White Americans...
Kara Walker’s recent site installation, “A Subtlety or the Marvelous Sugar Baby: An Homage to the Unpaid and Overworked Artisans Who Have Refined Our Sweet Tastes From the Cane Fields to the Kitchens...
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