Author Archives: mickey150

Mainframe is hosting the monthly First Friday Open House on November 7 and you are invited!  The theme for this month is “Dualities” celebrating the collaboration between artists who use different media from one another.  There will be food, drink, music and lots of beautiful and innovative art, so come join us!      MyContinue reading “Collaboration can be fun!”

“Life is a great adventure!” says my 82 year old friend B. She is well-travelled, yet one of B’s greatest joys is a small courtyard outside her back door.  She tells of the wonderful flowers in bloom there, her chats with people walking by, the robin that nests in her overgrown chocolate vines.  She quotesContinue reading “Adventure!”

During the cold dark winter I find its important to avoid boredom by shaking up my routine.  Its the same idea as putting various spices on a dish in order to keep the flavors fresh.  So this past winter I held a class for anyone wanting to learn to paint the costumed figure.  It keptContinue reading “Season It!”

This year I became an art teacher almost by accident.  In another life I taught difficult subjects to groups of 100 or more, so I didn’t think it would be all that difficult to teach someone to draw.  To my surprise it was more work – and more reward – than I expected.     Continue reading “Teaching is Learning”

My dad was a career baseball player, and I am grateful for many of the life lessons he taught me. Some of those lessons enhance my pursuit of art. He was an original, authentic, and funny guy who understood the importance of thinking for yourself but not taking yourself too seriously.  I think that’s aContinue reading “Batter Up!”

Happy New Year!  I find that each new year seems fresh, like new-fallen snow.  It’s like a new canvas, at once blank and beckoning.  There are so many paths to take through the January snow and I am eager to put down my tracks.  But it’s easy to get lost in the opportunities.  So IContinue reading “Beginning”

The world seems to slow down in November.  Its a time of transition – for the seasons, for politics, and for people.  Leaves that were vibrant just a couple of weeks ago are now brown and shrivelled.  They litter the neighborhood, along with used campaign cards and candy wrappers.  Gone is the ruckus of littleContinue reading “Reflections”

This summer I went to Provincetown, MA for vacation with friends.  The first week I spent time  painting with Hilda Neily.  Hilda teaches the Cape School of Art method of New American Impressionism. New American Impressionism was started by Charles Hawthorne, who saw the paintings of Claude Monet as the seminal point of modern painting.Continue reading “Learn a New Way”

It is difficult to write lightly and brightly when all around us there is chaos and unrelenting darkness.  I was thinking about this when out with friends to paint en plein air.  We do this every Saturday afternoon and it seems we have had flat gray skies every single Saturday in recent memory.  Its hardContinue reading “It’s In Your Hands”