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If you marry a Jackson Pollock you get his drinking and his rages. If you marry a Diego Rivera you get his womanizing. If you marry a Virginia Woolf you get her manias and her despair. If you marry a Paul Gauguin you get his sarcasm—which he will call irony. If you...

A participant in my current advanced creativity coaching training asked the group, “Why is it that so many creative people are convinced (guilty myself of this) that they need the most expensive, rare, or premium equipment in order to create something meaningful or of...

I wanted to share the following recently received email with you: Hi Eric, Today's post really resonated with me. After being married for over 30 years, and having experienced a fabulous marriage, my husband stepped away from the marriage with another woman. Although...

MY WIFE HAS THE PROBLEM Many relationships are peppered with blaming. Artists’ relationships are no different. Consider the following coaching session from my creativity coaching practice. Jake, a would-be filmmaker in his early thirties, came to see me. “How are you...

Hello, everybody: Let’s continue our chat from last week. Artists struggle as they try to balance their desire for relationship with the many real and perceived drawbacks of relationship. Some come to feel that they do best with a partner whom they see relatively...

Few people are spared relationship problems. For thousands of years the divorce rate was kept artificially low by cultural injunctions against divorce, cultural norms that painted marriage as the only right and normal option, a vesting of privilege and control in...

Last week we looked at ten building blocks that make for a successful intimate relationship between two artists or between an artist and a non-artist. Here are the remaining ten building blocks: 11. Maintenance of friendship. Nothing is more crucial to the viability...

What is required of two people, when one or both of them is an artist, for the creation and maintenance of a solid intimate relationship? In my experience, for such a relationship to work--and to last—it must be founded on twenty particular building blocks. Here are...

Many visual artists have no particular trouble starting pieces but lots of trouble finishing them. Why is finishing a work of art problematic for so many artists? In this series we’ll look at twelve reasons. Here’s reason number one: Reason 1. Not ready to start...

Many visual artists have no particular trouble starting pieces but lots of trouble finishing them. Why is finishing a work of art problematic for so many artists? In this series we’ll look at twelve reasons. Here’s reason number two: Reason 2. Not ready to start...