Hands Series 2025
I am my hands. Everything I do and have done came through my hands. My hands have been amazing and tell countless stories. So when my friend Mark told me about his Ontological coaching and how six words and their emotions account for most everything we people do — it challenged me to express these […]
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The Hand That Started Everything — Santa Barbara, 1981
I was twenty-four years old and I had no idea what I was doing with my life. I knew I could draw. I knew I loved the feel of a burin moving across a copper plate — the resistance, the precision, the permanent mark of it. And I knew that on Sunday mornings I could […]
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Cathy’s Fancy: My First Artist in Residence
As a boy I liked to swim in the sea and sketch things I saw as I traveled the world with my family. As a teenager I was so excited when I saw an advertisement for an over-water villa in Bora Bora, Tahiti. The concept of a lifestyle living and painting in idyllic spots peppered […]
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African Arts at the Cantor, Stanford University
Juxtaposed with the emotive and powerful Rodin sculptures in the adjacent room, a collection of African arts stops me in my tracks and bludgeons my preconceptions about the creative output and content of this overlooked continent. I’m dumbfounded by the modern dynamism and universal messaging of what is a “Global Africa” which “has been connected […]
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From Sketchpad to iPad
I’m a purist and a contemporary fine artist. I paint with big brushes and oil paints on large canvases and exhibit them globally. So when visiting the Apple Store just to get new batteries for our iPhones, and my wife excitedly showed me an iPad and asked me to check out the drawing and painting […]
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Renaissance Series 2021- 2022
Rebound 63x67inch Oil on Canvas Covid changed everybody. We Rebounded, galvanized by every piece of news with corresponding highs and lows. Yet despite the upheaval, there was still an undercurrent of optimism I chose to connect with. Though I struggled to push the boulder uphill, letting the rock flatten me on its way back down […]
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Recovery: painting with the pandemic 2020-2022
The world has changed everybody ever since some socially inept virus crashed the party. We have gone up and down galvanized by every piece of news with knee-jerk reactions of highs and lows. Yet despite the upheaval, there is a still an undercurrent of optimism I choose to connect with. I may be struggling […]
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Art Diplomacy- Beyond Boundaries
When offered the possibility to soothe fractured souls by leading art workshops for Ukrainian refugees, I just said yes! It seemed like a tiny tangible service I could offer for those escaping the war. I envisioned giving art supplies to children so they would have something to do while their mothers tried to sort […]
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Feeling stressed or anxious? Reach for a pencil or paintbrush instead of your smartphone.
By Carin Knoop & Bahia El Oddi “Making art allows the lava of emotions pent-up inside of me to flow out slowly, avoiding an eruption. I fear that if people don’t express themselves creatively, all the natural frustrations of life will boil up and burst out uncontrollably, with less-than-ideal repercussions.” — Gregory Burns Many of […]
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