Museletter

Entrance to Gustave Bauman’s Home and Studio on the old Santa Fe Trail, 2024. Image by Ivan Barnett “The arts are not a luxury. They are as fundamental to our humanity as language, love, and shelter.”—American Poet, former Chairman of…

Patina Model re-enacting Madame Butterfly for photo shoot.  Image, Peter Ogilvie “Opera is love, hate, death. It is very important. With a little makeup, you can become another person. The opera is something fake, that, little by little, on stage,…

Lost souls, Finding faith finally, Santa Fe, 2021.  Image by Ivan Barnett “The role of the artist is to not look away.”— Akira Kurosawa Why Ivan Barnett Isn’t Just Another “Art Coach” or Creative Consultant The internet is flooded with…

Cracking the code of aging, De Vargas Street, Santa Fe 2024.  Image by Ivan Barnett. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”– Thomas Merton I’m Ivan Barnett, an artist, an Arts coach, a creative…

The GRR Martin train with the light of my life, daughter Grace Barnett.  Image by Ivan Barnett. “Art is not a thing; it is a way.” — Elbert Hubbard In the world of creative coaching, the word “serious” can sound…

A Mid-career cut short, Claire Kahn, Santa Fe 2022.  Image Ivan Barnett The Journey of a Working Artist This is not theory. It is a lived experience. For over five decades, I’ve walked the tightrope of creativity and commerce, of…

Marcel Duchamp and Milton Avery.  Image by Ivan Barnett. “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” — Bertolt Brecht If you work in the arts, you already feel it. The…

All eyes were on 131 West Palace, Santa Fe.  Image by Ivan Barnett “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.”— Vincent van Gogh Building a great gallery—a world-class gallery—is not for…

Sandros perfect design sense, Santa Fe. image by Ivan Barnett “To create one’s own world takes courage.” — Georgia O’Keeffe In all great works of art, two forces are always at play:  practiced discipline and fearless invention or reinvention. Groundbreaking…

It only takes One, Santa Fe, NM. Image by Ivan Barnett. “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”— Martha Beck In a world that feels like it’s spinning faster every day—where economies shift, markets contract, and…

By Ivan Barnett Arthur, Georgia, and Carl who showed me the way, image by Ivan Barnett “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”— Winston Churchill When I was younger, I…

This happens in most studio practices more times than not. Every conversation between artist and mentor, gallerist and collector, a question that hovers silently over the table or sometimes echoes in the middle of the night when you stare at…