“Dust everywhere… and out of that emerged this beautiful boy with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, holding his hand out to help me to my feet.” – Marie Lu, Legend. We ate sushi and spaghetti for Thanksgiving last week with a giggly group of old and new friends in the remote Costa Rican surf/yoga mecca of Nosara, a place my wife and I hold deeply sacred. Sitting alone on my board the following morning, Black Friday, I stared into the vast blue and recalled the last time we visit

“How does a lie come to be widely taken as the truth? The answer is disturbingly simple: Repeat it over and over again. When faced with facts that contradict the lie, repeat it louder.” This NYT editorial from earlier this week discussed the remarkable success of the voter fraud myth. Despite being statistically non-existent (31 cases in over a billion ballots), this false narrative has convinced nearly half of registered voters that voter fraud is a problem that justifies ma

After featuring these works in San Francisco and Dallas, my Best Books series finally comes home to Miami for the first time. See it this Saturday night until October 6th. See details and RSVP below. Share this: Tweet Share on Tumblr Email #contemporaryart #fineart #stuartsheldon #Miami #BestBooksEverWritten #paintings #miamicountryday

If you made it to the epic Fancy Nasty finale bonfire last Saturday night, hosted by The New Tropic, lucky YOU. If not … next time (we’re just warming up). Many people are calling this grassroots installation and Art Basel favorite an important milestone in Miami’s creative evolution, one whose purity will evoke smiles and hand-to-heart respect for decades. I don’t disagree. My name is Stuart Sheldon. I’m both very fancy and very nasty, a fine artist, author, curator, blogger

Eight Years in the Studio, Work Pants, Acylic and paper on cardboard, Old window, 2014, Stuart Sheldon We all wear uniforms that hold our secrets. Your suit, scrubs, hardhat, sensible shoes, heels, sneakers define you in some subtle or overt way. My painting clothes, the work pants and shirts ripped and spattered over a decade in the studio, bear all the marks and scars that define any artist: triumph, failure, magic, truth, dedication, doubt, sex, beauty, repulsion and perse

You’re on a beach, beneath a coconut palm, sipping a cold juice, as you watch the antics of a pudgy naked baby digging in the sand and splashing at the water’s edge. It’s not your baby, but the pureness of the scene delights you at your core. I was that baby. Frolicking in the buttery waters of a small protected lagoon called Matheson Hammock in Miami. That joyful memory burned itself into my psyche, and I always dreamed that one day my own child would be that baby, shrieking

“You’re amazing. I loved it. Wouldn’t change a thing!” Unless you’re talking to Stevie Wonder, this is not legitimate feedback. It’s applause. We all need applause every now and again. BUT, without substance, your well-meaning commentary is the barking of a seal. To paraphrase marketing guru, Seth Godin, if you want to improve, actively seek feedback that clearly and generously identifies ways you can more effectively delight your customers and create a more remarkable experi

If you found 20-pounds of pot floating in the sea, what would you do? My stocky dad and his lanky boat partner, Dan, didn’t think a boat of just 21-feet warranted a name, but unofficially ours was the Thick and Thin, a tip of the visor to a friendship that began in kindergarten and still endures 75 years later. I grew up on that modest dive boat, communing with tropical fish, my freckly face pressed into a little yellow mask. One summer day, when I was 12, we three sped home

Inside the Mind of Picasso, acrylic, oil crayon and resin on wood, 24″x24″, 2003 There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot. But there are others who transform a yellow spot into the sun. Pablo Picasso “I don’t know how to look at art.” More than a few people have told me this over the years. At my shows. At galleries. At museums. I’m always confused, because telling me you don’t know how to look at art is like telling me you don’t know how to have sex. What

Today is my birthday. But the more auspicious event was yesterday – my 7th anniversary. For a guy who didn’t get the marriage thing right until he was 40, this is a big deal. Wool and copper? Not the most obvious of symbols for a longstanding love affair. But, when I really thought about it, the meaning emerged. Wool is warm and safe, a haven from the menacing elements. Jodi and I have been and are each other’s haven in the eyes of our storms. It is soft and cozy, a place to

One vial contains drops of my boiling blood. It all speaks to the steady erosion of our civilized society. And with its mutilated reference to publishing, it laments the degree to which the ever-babbling media continues to be part of the problem instead of the solution. Share this: Tweet Share on Tumblr Email #kinetic #art #DesignDistrict #MooreBuilding #vialofblood #stuartsheldon #media #Miami #sculpture