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       "The receiver of a true artistic impression is so united to the artist that he or she feels as if the work were their own and not someone else's - as if what it expresses were just what he or she had long been wishing to express. A real work of art destroys the separation between receiver and artist, between all minds who receive this work of art. The great attractive force of art is this emotional infectiousness and spiritual union, which compels us to be the best versions of ourselves."
       -Leo Tolstoy

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure.”

         This mural, my final painting in Kathmandu, is an aesthetic culmination of the images, objects, and ideas I have been most compelled by while in Nepal. As previously described, the wooden doll, one of thousands carved by mountain villagers and sold here in the city, acts, within my current learning, as an icon of historian Yuval Harari’s...

”Art compensates us for certain inborn weaknesses of the mind, weaknesses we can think of as psychological frailties.”

           The following is from Maria Popova’s brilliant blog Brainpickings, with distillations from the book Art as Therapy, written by philosopher Alain de Botton and art historian John Armstrong. Popova writes,  “with our fluid selves [..] and culture of prioritizing productivity over presence, no wonder we find ourselves in need of recentering. Our psychological histories, relationships and working routines mean that our emotions can incline grievously in one direction or another. We may, for example, have a tendency to be too complacent, or...

       "Stress doesn’t come from what’s going on in your life, it comes from your thoughts about what's going on in your life.”

          The following is from Andrew Bernstein and has fundamentally changed the way I think and therefore feel, and improved my life day to day. If you want a potentially empowering shift in mindset, read on.
        “The party line idea is that the reason we experience so much stress today is because once upon a time our caveman and cavewoman ancestors would face challenges like sabre tooth tigers....

This painting, on the streets of Kathmandu, is my spin on the ancient Indian symbol known as The Infinite Knot, or Shrivatsa, in Sanskrit. My sister and I came across this symbol frequently on our trek in the Himalayas, and I really like it. I wanted to give it more substance as an image, both visually and symbolically. Traditionally it signifies "the dramatic interplay and interaction of the opposing forces in the dualistic world of manifestation, leading to their union, and ultimately to harmony in the universe. This fact is amply reflected in the symmetrical and regular form of...