Lifting the veil and revealing trade secrets from the art world, the Rogue Buddha Gallery, artist and curator Nicholas Harper and other arts related professionals.
What Comes First? Ah, the age-old question: What came first, the title or the painting? For every artist and every piece of art, I'm sure the answer is different. For me, it changes almost every time too, unless I'm working on a series like my "Nocturnes"—a collection of ambient and minimal landscapes. When I approach a blank canvas, one of two things is usually true. Either I have a crystal-clear…
And How I Came to Use it to Describe my Art When A Volkswagen Is My Best Option With sweat pouring down my forehead I position the canvas, it’s framed in one-inch pine trim boards and leaning against my candy apple green Volkswagen Super Beetle. The hot summer sun bounces off the chrome of that finely designed German auto, casting glares and glints in my eye. I struggle through the 95-degree heat.…
My Weekly Lunch Date with the Dead It all began about seven years ago. My trusty, weekly afternoon ritual of dining on the go was in a bit of a crisis. My favorite parking spot, once a haven with a magnificent view of the Minneapolis skyline, had slowly but surely succumbed to nature's relentless creep. Trees and foliage, like an incredibly slow-motion documentary, had gradually devoured the…
" All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." These immortal words from Shakespeare's As You Like It feel particularly resonant when contemplating a painting like Aria. The canvas itself is a proscenium, and in it, a lone figure stands poised for her big scene, her moment in the spotlight. She's about to perform her aria. In the world of opera, an aria is more than just a…
"He must not like women." That gem of a comment floated my way at an art fair a few years back, overheard as two ladies analyzed one of my portraits. Their critique? I was "cutting off the women's arms." What they didn't know was that the artist himself was standing mere feet away, silently eavesdropping. Ah, the perks of relative anonymity – getting the unadulterated, unfiltered truth about your…
Market of the Beast Dark Art Market The Minneapolis sky was a perfect, crisp blue, a shade my Catholic mother would affectionately call "Mary's Blue." Perfectly pillowed clouds danced in the distance, a serene backdrop to a profoundly nostalgic moment. There I stood, in the heart of the Hollywood Theater – not just any theater, but the historic Hollywood, the legendary Hollywood, the fabled…
Memory as Muse Have you ever wondered where an artist finds their muse, or what narratives unfold in their mind as they bring a canvas to life? For my painting, "Drift," the inspiration emerged from a memory back to my teenage years, a time steeped in cosmic wonder and introspection. Imagine a 13 or 14-year-old me, tucked into bed on a Sunday evening, precisely at 10 PM. The air would fill with…
Only a few days away! I get asked all the time if I have a prints of particular works of art that I've created. While I made prints way back in the day, I haven't really had prints as an option for numerous years, until recently. Last month I debuted a number of digital prints for the first time at three different art fairs, Edina, Stone Arch and Wayzata. And they were a hit! And so... not only…
This is a photos taken at an early stage of a portrait commission featuring a mother and her two daughters. As you can see, I begin a painting with a reddish tint to the panel and then draw my composition directly on top before applying the oil paint. While I usually have a fairly refined sketch to draw from, when applying that idea to the panel it often changes considerably as I bring the image…
Everybody needs a break from time to time, even from doing that which one loves to do. Certainly this was the case for me. While I have been honored to have so many people help with the gallery over the years, from interns to volunteers, family and friends, the operation of the Rogue Buddha over the past 21 years has very much been a labor of love and an all consuming vocation for me. And so when…
It’s true, sometimes the arts can be a bit stuffy and dare I say, even elitist. I’m sure we’ve all had that moment of cringe when reading some arts related article talking about a such and such painting or sculpture that sold at auction in the millions and when we look at the art that fetched the money and notoriety, the first words that come to our mind are “Is that all there is?” In such…
It's with great anticipation and excitement that I'm announcing a new project that is coming to fruition in the next month or two. Actually, it's been around, and in the making, in some form for about 6 or so years. It all started when I began making small soundscapes to accompany distorted videos I was making of my paintings and posting to IG. Each soundscape, although short in length, was…
I've often talked about art being a sort of soul mate. That is, when you see a piece of art that instantly touches you, moves you and reaches deep into your insides, it's because that work of art is a sort of soul mate, a piece of the puzzle that is you. One could also liken it to being a mirror, one that once peered upon, reflects the self looking into it. But rather than reflecting the…
Have you ever felt like you were in the doldrums, unable to find your motivation or find a reason to get moving? I have. In fact, every winter I seem to find myself needing a bit of a break from most things life, art included. It's then that I slip into what can best be described as hibernation. At first this used to bug me as I didn't really know what was going on. All I knew was that I felt lazy…
One of my favorite things to do is roam aimlessly in various MN State Parks. Oddly enough, usually as I'm just arriving to begin my adventure, most others are concluding theirs, leaving me most often to my lonesome in the park, many of which roam for miles and miles. See I usually arrive with just about 30 to 60 minutes left to go until sunset. This gives me ample time to get fairly far from…
Generally speaking, a cardinal rule for artists to follow when desiring an exhibit, is to not approach the gallery director during an opening and ask about how one should get said exhibit. An especially bad no no is to pull out your cell phone and ask to have the director look at your images on your phone or to peruse your Instagram feed. While it's entirely appropriate, even encouraged, to…