From a MyModernMet.com online article:
Since I work as a fine artist now, there are fewer commercial entities to please, so I’ve discovered something that should have been very obvious. If you want to engage the viewer, don’t tell them everything, encourage them to ask their own questions. An artist should not describe—he or she should interpret. If you design into your work a bit of mystery—areas where the viewer must “fill in the blanks”—you set up an unspoken dialog with your viewers and an emotional weight will begin to develop organically. This is just one example of course, but an important one.
Artist Thomas W. Schaller combines a passion for architecture and storytelling into emotional landscape watercolor paintings. Originally trained as an architect, he found himself drawn to images of the built environment and eventually left designing behind to pursue fine art on a full-time basis. His education places him in an ideal position for architecture painting. Schaller understands how to design structures and knows what attributes to include and what he should leave out. At the same time, he’s able to tap into the feelings we get from visiting a city—such as a sentimentality—to produce pieces that are both beautiful and alluring.
Legendary entertainer Julie Andrews will receive the American Film Institute’s lifetime achievement award in 2020. In addition to her theatrical career, Andrews has published more than 30 children’s books with one of her daughters, writer and arts educator Emma Walton Hamilton. John Yang sits down with Andrews and Hamilton to discuss how the star focused on family even during her Hollywood heyday.
I describe myself as an urban-based painter who is interested in green spaces. Painting and drawing have been seen as profoundly unfashionable for most of my working life, and I have felt sometimes that it was quite eccentric to be a figurative painter with conventional subject matter. Looking back, my insistence on maintaining my practice as a figurative painter now seems more radical than conventional.
I was very blessed to have the opportunity to catch up with Hogan ahead of her Mayfair exhibition. I find myself entranced by her vibrant paintings that are dense with detail, filling the canvas from edge to edge with layers upon layers of paint. She has also established portraiture practice, her commissions including HRH The Prince of Wales. In a unique style, Hogan paints her sitters whilst they are deep in conversation, capturing unguarded gestures and expressions to create intricate portraits of both honesty and intimacy.
“It’s a way of life that’s gone and I don’t think it’s a bad state that it’s gone. But realistically it must’ve been livable on a level by pretty well everyone involved or it wouldn’t have gone on for a thousand years.”
The latest documentary on PBS from Ken Burns starts this Sunday, and will likely get your foot tapping. “Country Music” is an eight-part series, featuring never-before-seen footage and photos. Amna Nawaz sat down with Burns, who has now had more than 30 films on PBS telling the stories of America. The conversation is part of our ongoing series on arts and culture, Canvas.
Patty Smyth & her band Scandal
I have always loved the ocean and also photography. I started taking pictures as a teenager and was very inspired by black and white masters like Ansel Adams and 
