The Painter's Keys
Fifteen Years of Letters by Robert Genn
I love discovering new sources of inspiration. And wow, The Painter’s Keys is a great source of inspiration! First and foremost it archives thousands of letters, written twice a week since 2000, by Canadian artist Robert Genn. Sara Genn, his daughter, says, “Dad wrote a letter twice-weekly to artists, non-stop for 15 years”.
Today The Painter’s Keys is a worldwide community of artists from over 115 countries who visit this website for information, inspiration, artist advice, friendship and connectivity.
Today tens of thousands of artists subscribe to get the weekly letters. You can sign up here. By the way, they're free.
Robert doing what he loved most, painting en plein air.
Sara says, The Painter’s Keys began in the winter of 1998 by my Dad while on a family sojourn in Southern Spain. He started with five recipients—artists he knew might accept an epistolary studio friend. Soon, requests trickled in to be added to the list, and he came to understand the idea of a Brotherhood and Sisterhood of Artists—a worldwide community of creative people with a lot of the same concerns. Of his idea he wrote, “While ours seems a simple business, there’s just so much worth knowing”.
In the Fall of 2013, my Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told he had a year to live. Along with painting, writing and organizing his archive, he asked if I would continue the letters for as long as they might be useful. Since then, I have written every other letter and republished weekly one of Dad’s.
Robert Genn in his South Surrey, BC studio, 2012.
The website also has a fantastic Quotes page—with the world's largest collection of quotes about art!
The Books page lists an eclectic mix of essays, novels, books on the theory of painting, the practice of painting, the roots of why we paint. If, like me, you want to go deeper in your reading about art, here is just a smattering to whet your appetite:
Eternal Truths for Every Artist. Harley Brown offers artists his “truths” for painting success– the stuff he hopes they teach in art school.
The Painted Word. Tom Wolfe addresses the scope of modern art, from its founding days as Abstract Expressionism through its transformations to Pop, Op, Minimal and Conceptual.
How I Paint: Secrets of a Sunday Painter. Thomas S. Buechner asks: What is the process by which a painting comes into being? What goes on in the artist’s mind?
The Talent Code. Daniel Coyle asks: What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it?
Life With Picasso. Francoise Gilot was a young painter in Paris when she first met Picasso—he was sixty-two and she was twenty-one. During the following ten years they were lovers, worked closely together and she became mother to two of his children.
Other titles include:
An Artist Teaches.
Awakening the Artist Within.
Wabi sabi Simple (Wabi sabi is an ancient - Japanese aesthetic that values the imperfect, the handmade and the simple).
Creative Freedom (52 strategies for getting out of ruts and venturing beyond your comfort zone).
Earthen Pigments (about hand-gathering & using natural colors from the soil).
