Secrets of success over coffee

Photo by Iván Ramos

I had coffee with my pal Iván Ramos yesterday. He’s a part-time photographer and a full-time realtor, although the proportions are constantly shifting. I recently recommended he read Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles. He’d just finished it.

Photo by Iván Ramos

Bayles’ idea of what makes a successful artist can be boiled down to this: they keep making art. (However, don’t think you ‘get’ the book from that capsule description because every page is an ‘aha’ moment. It will be the best $7.32 you ever spend.) Launching from that, Iván and I started talking about our own organizational techniques.

Photo by Iván Ramos

Eat the Frog First—this means to start off by getting the most detestable part of the job out of the way first. Often these tasks have the greatest long-term influence on your career, but you really hate them.  If you have to eat a live frog, it doesn’t pay to sit and stare at it a long time—it distresses you and bores the frog.

For me, the “frog” is marketing and organization and part of the reason I dislike them is that they ‘distract me’ from my fundamental job. But that’s silly; they are an integral part of my fundamental job.

Photo by Iván Ramos

Time Blocking—this means doing the same thing at the same time every day, and it’s how I live my life. I approach every task—from laundry to painting—as a process that is allotted a certain amount of time, rather than as a job that must be finished. I learned long ago that this is the single best way for me to avoid “painter’s block,” because I don’t waste any time jollying myself into painting.

Photo by Iván Ramos

Don’t Break the Chain—this simply means that an artist has to work every day to be successful. Iván told me that in the early days of his career, Jerry Seinfeld put a big red X over every day that he sat down and wrote. The writer’s job, he said, was to not break the chain of Xs.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

It's apple blossom time

Orchard in Blossom, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh

This week, the fruit trees are starting to come into blossom. With my usual impeccable timing, I’m knee-deep in a project in my studio. Nevertheless, if Mother Nature cooperates, my class will be outdoors painting at G and S Orchards in Walworth this weekend.

Because I want my students to see how Vincent Van Gogh painted orchards in blossom, I went to Wikipaintingslooking for examples. I do this all the time, but this morning the process stopped me cold.

I’d estimate Wikipaintings has about 1900 paintings and drawings attributed to Van Gogh. Between November of 1881 and July of 1890, Vincent van Gogh painted almost 900 paintings. Wikipaintings, therefore, must have his complete oeuvre in one place.

Orchard with Blossoming Apricot Trees, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh

We can’t understand a painting in depth from the internet. However, it’s quite possible to understand a painter in breadth using a resource like Wikipaintings. And, very simply, nothing like this existed any time in the past. When I was young, we looked at paintings on slides or in books. (In comparison, internet images are very clear.) The rare and pricey catalogue raisonné, compiled by researchers, was as close as we could get to a broad view of a painter’s work.

Orchard and House with Orange Roof,  1888, Vincent Van Gogh. Wanna paint as well as Van Gogh? Draw, draw, draw…

We are beginning to see the development of online catalogue raisonné (see here for an example) but they’re almost redundant in the face of this free, open resource, Wikipaintings.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

Do You Need Professional Indemnity Insurance?

Professional indemnity insurance (also referred to as PII, PI, professional insurance, public liability insurance, PLI and errors and omissions insurance) is crucial cover for any party who supplies advice, guidance or professional services. If you work in any professional industry, from creative companies to firms who handle data, insurance is essential, yet it can be tricky to know whether or not this form of cover is necessary to you.

In this article,
we'll be exploring which industries require professional indemnity insurance and why this type of cover is so important to companies across the UK and worldwide.

Who needs professional indemnity insurance?

If you think you need PI, chances are you're right! Essentially, if you work in a line of business where mistakes or misjudgements in your work could affect a client or third party, professional indemnity insurance is a vital form of cover which could protect you from the little errors that life can sometimes throw your way. If you're still not sure, it may be helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you offer your clients advice or guidance?
2. Do you work with data?
3. Do you provide technical solutions or services?
4. Do you offer creative services?
5. Is client confidentiality important in your work?
6. Do you work with important documents vital to clients?

If you have answered 'yes' to any of these questions, taking out professional indemnity insurance is a very smart idea.

Basically, PI insurance provides cover should any accidental miscalculations, mistakes, misjudgements or errors adversely affect your clients. If a client was to take legal action against you in such a situation, public liability insurance would cover the cost of a successful claim, court costs and any other losses to your business.

Which industries need professional indemnity insurance?

As a rule, any 'professional' industry has a need for PI, but this definition isn't particularly clear. To give you some idea of the sorts of areas in which insurance is important, here are a few examples:

• I.T. companies (from programmers to technical support teams)
• Financial companies (from accountants to bankers)
• Creative businesses (from advertising to marketing to photography companies)
• Architects, travel agents, engineer, estate agents...

This list is not exhaustive by any means. If you're at all unsure please consult our quick 'do I need insurance' checklist above or speak with an insurance expert. If you do need insurance, it is important to make sure you address this need. Without the right protection in place you risk your livelihood and your business. So get cover now!

Back to Castine in July

Castine from Fort George, 1856, by Fitz Henry Lane, The town is a little more populous today.

We interrupt the feverish painting of a lobster buoy to announce that I will again be painting in the 2014 Castine Plein Air Festival from July 24 to July 26.

Castine is a beautiful old town off the beaten path in Hancock County, Me. It is home to the Maine Maritime Academy. Like my home turf in New York, it has been under Native American, French, English, Dutch, and American dominion. But it’s a rare gem in that all those levels of occupation are clear to the casual visitor. They have great museums and their historical society has taken the time to clearly mark out historic sites.

One of two paintings I did at Castine Plein Air in 2013 of the tide turning at Wadsworth Cove.

Castine’s location at the mouth of the Penobscot River estuary gave control of the interior, which meant access to furs and timber. This is why it was settled early (seven years before the Plymouth Colony) and tussled over frequently. It was briefly the capital of French Acadia.

It even had a nobleman-gone-native, in the character of Baron Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin, who was married (in succession) to two Abenaki women.  Unlike New York’s Sir William Johnson, however, he appears to have been the real thing, rather than a jumped-up fur trader granted a title.

And the other one.

But all this history is overlaid not by the ruins of great mill towns, as it is here in New York, but with a “stunning collection of beautiful landscapes, rugged coastlines, historic architecture, and an abundance of New England charm,” as the Castine Arts Association quite accurately boasts.

This year, painters will be working on site for three days, with the festival culminating in a sale at the Harborview Room at the Maine Maritime Academy. They’ve doubled the exhibition space—which is grand, because it was tight—but they can’t double the hotel occupancy in the area. If you want to catch this fantastic event, you’ll book somewhere early.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

New Technologies In Finance - Joseph Wilk On Banking Technology

Joseph Wilk, credit card and debit card transaction specialist and owner of Millennium Merchant Services, has seen rapid changes in the credit card processing industry recently. Joseph Wilk works primarily with countertop credit and debit processing terminals, wireless satellite terminals, and electronic check readers, but these are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to financial technology. Companies around the world are working to take finance related practices digital and to mainstream those technologies.

Currently, financial companies are jumping to adopt digital wallet technologies. Digital wallets, Joseph Wilk NJ explains, can be used both to purchase items online and in stores. They also can serve as verification devices in situations where identification is needed, such as when purchasing alcohol. Digital wallets can best be understood as multi-part systems, consisting of an individual device, an application that is run on it, and the supporting infrastructure. Joseph Wilk knows that the devices that support digital wallets are often things like smart phones. Various digital wallets are currently being marketed by Visa, Apple, MasterCard, PayPal, and others. Consumers are so far less eager than banks to adopt this new technology, although one does sometimes see someone paying for a product by using a phone.

Digital check guarantee and conversion through the use of electronic check readers is a form of technology of which Joseph Wilk NJ is much more certain. Also known as remote deposit, these check readers allow a check to be electronically scanned and deposited into any checking account. This process was hesitantly adopted and only made legal in 2004 through what is known at the Check 21 act. After a slow start, remote deposit is frequently used by businesses today with the wide availability of digital check scanning technology.

Joseph Wilk NJ knows that, with all of the changes going on in digital banking, banks are looking for ways to keep their customers safer. Citibank, for examples, has replaced the magnetic strip on its cards with a smart chip for increased security. Most banks devote a significant amount of their web presence to addressing security concerns. The has government even stepped in, requiring that banks use a two-step authentication process to verify online banking log-ins. Banks also largely use a process of encryption or scrambling any time there is a transfer of personal or financial data. With banking rated as the second most common activity performed online, it is critical to take extra security steps.

Heart of the Andes

The Heart of the Andes, 1859, Frederic Edwin Church

Next month I’ll be down at Olana (the home of Frederic Edwin Church) to paint with friends from New York Plein Air Painters. To prepare myself, I stopped by the Metropolitan Museum to visit his most famous painting, The Heart of the Andes.

This is an enormous canvas—ten feet wide and five feet high—that depicts the whole panoply of earthly conditions, from the peak of Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador in the far distance to the lush jungle landscape lying at our feet.

The Heart of the Andes, 1859, (detail) Frederic Edwin Church, showing the focal tree at the lower left.

Church visited Ecuador and Columbia twice. He was retracing the journeys of a famous 19th century naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt. The Heart of the Andes is a composite view, including topography from many places.  The enormity of the canvas allows him to use more than one focal light. There is human activity, most noticeably on the path that leads us in to the cross, but we are cut off from most of it.

The Heart of the Andes, 1859, (detail) Frederic Edwin Church, showing the remarkably intricate foliage running along the right.

In the month of its first showing (in 1859) more than 12,000 people paid a quarter each to see it, waiting for hours in line.

“Nobody would pay a quarter to see a painting today,” Brad Marshall said as we looked at it. “They’d just look at it online.” But no photograph can capture this painting, particularly the intricate work running through the foreground.

The Heart of the Andes, 1859, (detail) Frederic Edwin Church, showing the church and village in the middle distance. There are worlds within worlds in this painting and the mind boggles at the idea of how he sketched it out.

Church eventually sold the work for $10,000, which at the time was the highest price ever paid for a work by a living American artist.

Let me know if you’re interested in painting with me in Belfast, Maine in August, 2014 or in Rochester at any time. Click here for more information on my Maine workshops!

How To Choose An Interior Designer For Your Kitchen Remodeling Project

Chances are that if you took a look back and honestly surveyed your home, you are most likely not completely satisfied with the way that it looks. This is most likely even more true when it comes to high traffic areas within your home like your kitchen, television room, dining room and bathroom. The good news is that with the introduction of some new home accessories and with a little light painting and décor changes, you can very easily give any room in your home a new look without spending beyond your means.

In order for you to truly get started with kitchen remodeling you will first need to sit down and formulate an accurate budget. From there you will need to determine if you plan on taking this project on all on your own, or if you instead desire to employ a professional interior designer to take this job on for you. There are pros and cons to both options.

If you attempt to execute a kitchen remodeling project on your own you may discover that you simply don’t have an eye for truly what needs to be changed and for what can be left the same. Additionally, if you don’t have the experience or skills needed to execute such a remodeling task you could end up causing more damage than good. Finally, you will need to realize that when taking on such a task on your own that you will need to put time aside in order to complete the project.

When hiring an interior designer you put the work in their hands and simply tell them what you are looking for. You set your budget and discuss what types of home accessories you would like to add to your rooms, and what type of changes you are comfortable with making. The only downside is that you are going to have to invest some time in determining which interior designers in your area have the experience and reputation that you can trust in order to give this type of responsibility to.

Therefore, You will need to research each and every interior designer that you may be considering. You should determine what type of training they have acquired over the years and should request to see examples of their completed work. That way you can be certain that you are only making use of the very best interior designers in your area.

Finally, you will need to consider how much these designers charge. The cost of a designer should be factored into your budget. This part of the process may be the hardest for you to research but will be well worth the time spent in the end.