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Note from the Atelier October 10, 2026 Hi There Reader... Lately, I’ve been thinking about what makes us want to keep making art. Is it the medium? The process? The finished piece? Or simply how we feel while we’re doing it? This month, I’m sharing some thoughts prompted by a conversation about pastels, along with my latest adventures in linocuts. I’ve also rounded up a few of October’s best exhibitions, including one right here in Grand Rapids that I was lucky enough to preview. Here’s to making whatever makes you want to keep going back. Cheers,

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Ignore the Words. Follow the Joy.

An artist friend of mine, who has traditionally worked in acrylics, recently began experimenting with oil pastels. And she's really enjoying them.

Then her husband, without meaning anything by it, referred to what she was doing as “coloring”.

Oof.

He wasn't criticizing her work. But the word stuck with my friend.

Suddenly she was wondering whether pastels were somehow less serious than painting. Was she really making art? Was it worth spending her time on something that could be described as “coloring”?

I told her what seemed completely obvious to me: “I think you should do what brings you the most joy! And not worry about the words that might be attached to it. Feed your passion!!”

Excellent advice.

Perhaps I should take it.

I've been doing my own version of this lately with linocut printing.

I love the graphic quality of linocuts. I like starting with an image and figuring out what stays and what goes. I like carving the block. I like rolling out the ink. And I especially like when I pull the paper away and see the print for the first time.

I really enjoy the whole process.

So naturally, I've found myself wondering whether I should be doing it.

Does printmaking count as fine art? Am I still a painter if I spend my time carving blocks? Should I be focusing on painting instead? Is this somehow a lesser use of my time?

Apparently I am perfectly capable of giving my friend advice that I cannot manage to give myself.

Then something happened at a recent art fair.

I had some of my linocut prints with me, and people kept stopping to look at them. Several wanted to know how I made them. We talked about carving the image, rolling the ink and pulling the print.

And more than once, the prints prompted a memory.

“My dad used to do this.”

“My grandfather made prints like these.”

Suddenly we weren't talking about whether linocut was fine art or craft or printmaking or anything else. We were talking about making things. About a process they remembered. About someone they loved who had once sat down with a block and a carving tool and made an image.

Nobody seemed particularly concerned about what to call it.

Except, apparently, me. And my friend with the oil pastels.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Painting sounds serious. “Coloring” doesn't. Fine art sounds important. Craft sounds like something else. We attach words to different ways of making things and then, somewhere along the way, start attaching value to the words.

Maybe, just maybe, the words aren't as important as we think they are.

I've written before about the blurry line between art and craft. Fortunately, I'm not particularly interested in finding that line anymore. I'm much more interested in what happens when we stop worrying about it.

What makes you want to keep going back?

What makes you curious enough to try something new?

What makes you lose track of time?

What makes you finish one thing and immediately start thinking about the next one?

What makes you want to make?

Those seem like much better questions.

Try the oil pastels. Carve the linoleum.

Paint the painting. Make the collage. Knit the sweater. Throw the pot. Draw with crayons if that's what makes you happy.

Call it art. Call it craft. Call it coloring.

Or don't call it anything at all.

Just make it. And feed your passions.

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October's Don't Miss Art Exhibitions

Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous The Metropolitan Museum of Art · New York City Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock shared a life, a studio and a place at the center of Abstract Expressionism, though Pollock’s fame long overshadowed Krasner’s work. Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous looks at them instead as artistic peers, tracing their individual and intertwined careers through more than 120 paintings, works on paper and other materials. It’s the first major New York exhibition devoted to either artist in more than 20 years and includes everything from Pollock’s famous drip paintings to Krasner’s collages and bold explorations of color and form. October 4 through January 31, 2027.

Roy Lichtenstein: Like New Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Opening this month, Roy Lichtenstein: Like New is the artist’s first New York retrospective since 1993. Best known for his comic-book imagery, Ben-Day dots and bold black outlines, Lichtenstein spent six decades exploring how images get copied, altered and reinterpreted. The exhibition brings together his iconic Pop paintings with lesser-known works, drawings, sculpture, film, prints and four re-created murals. Nearly 30 years after his death, we remain fascinated with how he reproduces and transforms images. October 11, 2026–May 10, 2027

Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden Reopening Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. After a four-year transformation, the Hirshhorn’s 1.3-acre Sculpture Garden reopens on October 31 with nearly 60 works, 50 percent more than before. Artist and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto reimagined the garden while honoring Gordon Bunshaft’s original design, adding new plantings, expanded seating and better connections between the garden and museum plaza. Visitors will find works by Rodin, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Picasso and de Kooning alongside more recent acquisitions. Yoshitomo Nara's Sentinels of Stillness, which consists of three sculptures created for the garden’s West Lawn, will debut as part of the reopening. Opens October 31

Julie Green: The Last Supper Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan I had the opportunity to get a sneak preview of this exhibition, and it is fascinating. For 22 years, Julie Green painted the final meal requests of death row inmates onto found ceramic plates, eventually creating nearly 1,000 of them. The plates are beautiful, simple and sometimes surprisingly ordinary; together, they form a powerful record of individual lives while raising larger questions about capital punishment and the American prison system. GRAM is only the second museum to exhibit Green’s complete installation, making this an especially noteworthy opportunity to see the work. October 3, 2026–October 24, 2027

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