History aside, when I think of an artist whose work I admire and who has had immeasurable impact on my work, I think of Miriam Dym. We met in graduate school nearly two decades ago. She has a particular, and idiosyncratic, vision that engages…

Artists Share Moments of Discovery A few weeks ago, before making the great trans-Taos trek from Cottam Road to Camino del Monte, I asked Vasari21 members if they had ever experienced what I call the “aha!” moment—a sudden realization that a material, a way of...

Artists who build careers on their own terms In the last three years, since launching this site, I’ve been struck by the increasing numbers of artists who take the business of showing and marketing their work into their own hands. Though some still nurse fond dreams...

The brick-and-mortar establishment is challenged on a number of fronts. What does that mean for galleries? And for artists? As reported a few weeks ago, mid-level brick-and-mortar galleries face a multitude of pressures, so much so that the mainstream press is...

Self-portraits have always served artists in a variety of ways. Art historians have suggested that Jan van Eyck’s Man in a Red Turban (1433), with its inscription “Als ich kann”—meaning, “this is what I can do”—is both a self-portrait and a kind of calling card to...

To the young or emerging artist, the art world may seem like a forbidding maze, a complicated circuitry of inside contacts and arcane codes almost impossible for the newcomer to crack. How can the artist without…

Getting the Most from Your Posts When a friend urged me to start posting on Instagram a few months ago, I immediately balked. I was already uploading a Vasari21 Pic of the Day to Facebook, pinning stuff to Pinterest, sending out weekly bulletins and updates, and...

More reactions to the ugly zeitgeist We’ve now had a full year to take stock of the current administration in Washington and, as Melissa Stern points out, “Every day brings a new outrage, a new affront to common decency, an erosion of our democracy.” Some artists see...

Suggestions for storing, selling, tossing, or giving away unwanted old work One of the saddest days of my life was the day I carted all my youthful paintings from my parents’ summer house to the dump in Montauk, NY, after selling the property in 2003. These included a...