Author: Ava Ash-Waichulis

Celebrated painter Oren Loloi is now offering live, one-on-one online mentorship sessions for developing artists. Based in Tel Aviv, Loloi brings a wide-ranging background in fine art, illustration, design, papercut work, and contemporary oil painting to a practice grounded in direct painting, imaginative realism, and psychologically charged figurative scenes. Born in Tel Aviv and shaped by years in New York, Milan, and Israel, his work often places figures within quiet, dreamlike environments where structure, atmosphere, and narrative ambiguity carry equal weight. Loloi’s background gives his mentorship a particularly broad foundation. He studied Fine Art and Humanities at Hofstra University, earned…

Striving, Not Arriving: The Practice Behind Expert Performance Image shown: Judith Leyster, Self-portrait (c. 1630). Oil on canvas, 74.6 x 65.1 cm (29.4 x 25.6 in). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Excellence in art rarely announces itself. It does not arrive fully formed, nor does it live only in finished works. What we recognize as colloquial mastery is often just the visible edge of a much larger process shaped by repetition, revision, and sustained attention. For a long time, art history has favored stories of talent and sudden brilliance. However, research on expertise suggests that high-level performance depends not…

Inspiration is often described as a metaphorical spark. In Inspirations: A Global Cascade of Influence From Old Souvenirs to New Voices, that spark expands into something far more enduring. It becomes a sustained pursuit of excellence, carried across time, place, and generations of artists. Presented in collaboration between the ÀNI Art Academies and the John F. Peto Studio Museum, the exhibition embodies a shared commitment to the highest standards in teaching, learning, and personal development. This definition of excellence moves beyond abstraction, becoming visible through the works themselves and the lineage of influence that connects them. At the heart of the exhibition lies a…

The Adorned World is a column about the lives of objects and the choices that shape them. My vision for this new column is to look beyond how things are made to consider how they are adorned. “Ornamentation” often conjures up superfluous decoration, enhancements, unnecessary garnish, or outright gaudy details. Ornamentation is crimeAdolf Loos, Ornament and Crime, 1908 True, ornamentation is what goes beyond structure to surface embellishment. Throughout human history, in all parts of the globe, people have taken what is necessary and carried it further. They used carving, painting, patterning, and refining the objects they live with.…

The Adorned World examines how objects are made and the choices that shape them. It explores design, fashion, craft, and material culture across architecture, interiors, decorative arts, dress, and ritual, with close attention to the details that give them meaning. Objects do more than serve a function. They reflect cultural values, express identity, and carry visual languages that can be understood across time. The chair is where we begin our journey. Beyond offering a place to sit, its proportions, materials, surfaces, and details reveal how a culture understands the body and its place in the world. A chair may suggest…

In observational drawing and painting, “respect” is often associated with subject matter, tradition, or sincerity of intent. Within the Waichulis framework, however, the more useful starting point is perceptual awareness. The central issue is not reverence for the object, but an accurate understanding of the limitations and tendencies of the visual system that mediates our experience of that object. The Waichulis Curriculum is built around the development of perceptual calibration and controlled mark-making through structured, sequenced exercises informed by vision science and skill-acquisition research. To work perceptually is to recognize that what we experience is not objective reality delivered intact…

Global diversity is often framed as a matter of exposure. Travel more. Read widely. Study other histories, languages, and traditions. Broaden your understanding of the world. This advice is valuable. But it assumes something rarely examined: that we already see clearly. ÀNI Art Academies define global diversity as fostering cultural understanding, social responsibility, and meaningful engagement with the global community. That goal requires more than just a gathering of information; it requires examining how perception shapes interpretation. To engage across cultures, we need both a map and a mirror. The map expands knowledge of the world while the mirror helps…

Image: James McNeill Whistler, “Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1” (“Whistler’s Mother”), (DETAIL) 1871 Why Limits Strengthen Learning in Artistic Practice One of the more surprising lessons from artistic practice is that progress often comes from working within limits rather than escaping them. While creativity is commonly associated with freedom and open-ended exploration, research across psychology, education, and skill acquisition suggests that well-designed constraints can significantly improve learning, control, and performance. In artistic practice, constraints function not as restrictions on expression, but as tools for stabilizing variables. By narrowing the range of decisions an artist must manage at once, constraints…

Image shown: Turner’s Dolbadarn Castle (DETAIL), based on studies from his 1798–99 Welsh tour, was developed in the studio and exhibited as his diploma submission at the Royal Academy in 1800 following his election as a full member. The date for the diploma exhibit is 1800, though the initial studies and work span 1798–1799 and perhaps into 1800. Where Practice Meets Insight: The Sketchbook as Creative Groundwork While artists had long used sketchbooks for a variety of purposes, including copying, compositional studies, and observational drawing, by the late eighteenth century, something quietly but significantly changed. Sketchbooks increasingly became sites of…

Image shown: Jan Vermeer, “The Art of Painting” (DETAIL) c.1666, oil on canvas The Simple Tools That Made Better Practice Possible Throughout history, changes in artistic practice have often followed changes in available tools. While the human visual system and the physical act of mark-making remain biologically constant, the instruments that mediate between observation and surface have shaped what artists are able to test, repeat, and refine. Some of the most influential tools in art history are not dramatic inventions, but modest innovations that supported new avenues of control, consistency, and feedback. These tools did not generate artistic ability, but…