Friday, January 28, 2022

Looking For Problems

Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty


Sunflowers
acrylic paint on canvas board
8" x 10" (20.3 cm x 25.4 cm)
202201001
© copyright Mike Kraus
Creativity is helped by honest debate and constructive criticism.  Only listening to positive reviews from “yes men” and sycophants reinforces limiting and misguided views on the way to certain failure.   Dissenting opinions are useful even when they are wrong.  It’s important to experiment and test our beliefs in the real world.  To do so, we need to seek “problems;” not “solutions.”  People that come bearing “solutions” are not open-minded and only seek to implement their own opinion.  But people presenting “problems” are willing to try various alternatives to find the best option for an issue.  And finding a true “Devil’s Advocate” will force you to be more effective and truthful.  An truthful opponent can stress test our ideas to separate facts from fiction.  We should welcome this criticism because these people care enough to state their honest views.  What we should fear most is a disinterested audience.

What is a problem you have?  Do you know your options?  Who do you confide in to find answers?  And do you ask "what if the opposite is true?"

Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree.  From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children's Memorial Foundation.  And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative.  In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art.  Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries.  Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.

For more information or custom order, please visit:
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Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Mentors and Role Models

Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty


Creative people have role models and mentors that inspire them to higher achievement.   These people can even be fictional characters from books and movies.  We need to find and be mentors.  We need collaborators to come together and experiment.  To set aside time and space to work.  To be open, curious, and expect the same in return.  Analyze the results while maintaining a positive environment.

Who do you admire?  What do you like about their work?  Why does their work have meaning for you?  What projects do you collaborate in?  And who do you mentor?



Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree.  From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children's Memorial Foundation.  And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative.  In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art.  Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries.  Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.

For more information or custom order, please visit:
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Monday, January 24, 2022

Beauty Is Life Affirming

Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty


 Twilight Woods
Acrylic paint on canvas
24" x 48" (61.0 cm x 121.9 cm)
201708086
© copyright Mike Kraus Art Inc.

Beauty is an affirmation of life that can soothe us while in distress.  Art is a hidden reconciliation of opposites creating harmony from chaotic elements.  This is an energy that removes societal blocks and reimagines our cultural structures.  It breaks rigid, obsolete, and oppressive rules in exchange for higher values.  It challenges and engages us toward more freedom.  To observe this, we need to respect and allow contemplation.  Time with no destination, pressure, activity, distractions, or purpose.  Allowing yourself “boredom” clears away the poisonous mental clutter and grants the mind space for creativity.  Strategic and purposeful procrastination to think of a goal or option is good.  This allows you to take in wider alternatives that are more creative and effective.  Immediate productivity freezes creativity in exchange for quick and often less efficient results. The mind needs time to simmer on intimate thoughts for pattern recognition.  Our brains want to create meaning, sense, and order.  So much so that our experiential memories will purposely change to “make sense” of situations.  Art is not the solution to the world’s problems.  It is a device of contemplation for a human mind that creates and solves its own problems.

Do you allow yourself quiet relaxation?  If so, how: a relaxing bath, long hikes in the wilderness, listening/playing music?  Do solutions to problems pop in your head when you stop thinking about them?


 Chicago Alley
acrylic paint on canvas board
16" x 20" (40.6 cm x 50.8 cm) 
201811125
© copyright Mike Kraus Art Inc.

Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree.  From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children's Memorial Foundation.  And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative.  In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art.  Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries.  Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.

For more information or custom order, please visit:
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Friday, January 21, 2022

To Create Is To Love

Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty


To create is to love. It is an act of focusing your attention on something of interest and pleasure. To make something everlasting. It’s the closest we come to immortality.

Knowing beauty is to see that originality is a myth. Imagination is the combining of ideas, influences, and collaboration leading to new ideas. And artists should acknowledge those motivations. Being the first to do something isn’t “original;” being different and better is.

What do you appreciate? Who inspires you? And how does that influence show up?


Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree.  From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children's Memorial Foundation.  And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative.  In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art.  Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries.  Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.

For more information or custom order, please visit:
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Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Art Is For Influencing the Mind

Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty


Art is for influencing the mind; good and bad.  This influence can be an imitation of life, truer than life, communication, pure form, or other aesthetic.  In a free and open society, nothing is more important than a proper education with a free exchange of honest ideas.  And this learning requires an understanding of the arts.  Competent training in images, forms, writing, mass media, and other creations immunizes us from deception, manipulation, and enslavement by those wishing to be tyrants.  Arts need to be a source of truth through the use of honest arguments; not a tool of purposeful lies for propaganda.  Disinformation should be vigorously fought (https://www.stophateforprofit.org/).  Providing clarity to the intellect is the highest honor for an artist.

What guides you?  What principles do you believe?  Do you really believe them or are they just empty words?  Is it just dogma or do your ideas grow and mature when you learn?  


Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree.  From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children's Memorial Foundation.  And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative.  In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art.  Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries.  Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.

For more information or custom order, please visit:
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Monday, January 17, 2022

Beauty Is An Expression Of Ourselves

 Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty


Beauty Is An Expression Of Ourselves
Creativity is the act of making beauty.   It’s a personality trait of combining ideas to create something new through a process.  It’s using that productivity to make a change.  It is a discipline that can take many forms.  Sometimes described as meditation, flow, openness, brainstorming, etc.  It’s the ability to see that the current unsatisfactory situation is not permanent and the skill to develop and implement a possible solution.

Art is an understanding of nature.  Knowing that life is a progression of birth, growth, peak, decline, and death.  That there’s a cycle to the seasons and a balance to all things.  Beauty teaches us that harmony is truth.

What do you find unacceptable?  How do you know complete reality?  And what actions can we take to make the world a better place?


Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree. From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children's Memorial Foundation. And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative. In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art. Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries. Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.

For more information or custom order, please visit:
at No comments:

Friday, January 14, 2022

Creativity

 Brightscapes: The Way To Beauty


Creativity
Transitioning from fruit foraging to meat hunters, humans were forced to be more social and cooperative.  And eating that flesh combined with physiological evolution lead to extremely quick growth of the human frontal lobe of the brain.  This allowed humans to develop imagination.  A “superpower” that allows the understanding of time, distance, and potential outcomes from actions.  Gathering around a campfire to cook meat developed our social skills.  It was a place for storytelling, gossip, and bonding myths.  A place to learn your role in society and the status of others.

Creativity is using the imagination to produce a work.   An innovation of style, empathy, and metaphor.  Art provides a way of remembering, hope, grieving, understanding, growth, and appreciation.   It’s a contrasting drive for broad diversity and unique niches for survival.  A tool that enables us to be better people.

What do you do to be creative?  Do you enjoy playing a musical instrument?  Maybe you're more reflective and search yourself for poetry and song?  Expression can come from your body in the form of dance, yoga, and athleticism.  What inspires you?


Mike Kraus was born on the industrial shoreline of Muskegon, Michigan. After earning his Fine Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he attended Grand Valley State University for his graduate degree. From there, he gained varied experiences from the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Art Institute of Chicago, Hauenstein Center For Presidential Studies, Lollypop Farm Humane Society, and the Children's Memorial Foundation. And every place he worked, he had his sketchbook with him and found ways to be actively creative. In 2014, Kraus became a full-time artist by establishing Mike Kraus Art. Since then, he has sold thousands of paintings that are displayed in nearly every state and dozens of countries. Currently, Kraus lives in Rochester, New York with his beautiful wife and goofy dog.

For more information or custom order, please visit:
at No comments:
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