Imagine Degas, spending all that time in the ballet studios with his sketch book, dreaming of a series of paintings that captured their movement.

Now that we’re all huddling indoors and meeting online, a new kind of conversation is happening on Zoom where artists gather and ogle other artists’ work. Join us for our next conversation. Generally we meet monthly. Sign up below to get invitations:

When we look backwards in history, we see only the best. ⁠
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The artworks we are taught to think that “count” are just a few from an endless amount of experiments, failures, and successes. ⁠

Picasso was forty years old when he became “Picasso” after he painted the scenery for Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet in London.⁠

I never buy the Financial Times. But it was pink, it was in the olden days when I was at an airport traveling and I wanted to read the feature on David Hockney and that is when I saw this haunting quote:

Unfortunately they gave up teaching painting and drawing. What’s going to happen? If you stopped teaching mathematics, bridges would fall down.
-David Hockney, Financial Times June 26, 2016

The best artists I know are secretly hilarious. They giggle and laugh and are more often mischievious or odd or out of sync, often absurd often visual thoughts bouncing from out of nowhere in the conversation like a stray soccer ball from a neighbor. But when you take our picture, we have to look really fucking serious. Deadly serious, like Picasso.

“Stay away from Bonnard.”⁠
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Says the post it on the interior door of my studio.

A reminder not to look, not to be seduced so easily by the shimmering palettes.

So I make like Odysseus tie myself to the mast.

I’m thrilled to report that Interviews from this site and more are soon to be appearing in a book “The Nudist and the Chemist” by Griffith Moon Publishing.  www.griffithmoon.com

Over the last several years, I have had the privilege of interviewing and writing about over seventy eight artists for this column on the Huffington Post called First Person Artist. During that time I made the process of writing and having a conversation with other artists an integral part of my art practice. On Wednesday, June 16, I am happy to announce that the Huffington Post will have a section devoted solely to the Arts with me as the editor. The Arts Section will cover the full range of arts and culture – from painting to filmmaking to architecture to opera. We are encouraging artists, curators and critics alike to write about their work, review others’ work, write about anything newsworthy that inspires further thought or a strong opinion or curate their own online exhibitions. I will continue to cross-post my own interviews and writings here on First Person Artist. In the meantime, we’ll see you on the Huffington Post.

Kind Regards,
Kimberly

The Huffington Post and Kimberly Brooks will be hosting a lunch for Featured Artists Oct 15 in New York City. Invitation forthcoming.