Witnessing my daughter's miraculous birth and then the death of my wife soon after forced me to contemplate my own mortality. I asked myself, if I died tomorrow, what would I regret? Only one answer surfaced.

If there is a boundary, trust an artist to cross it -- and then make you appreciate why.

The works which I find most deeply satisfying to create are the ones which feel like gifts that I have received through some sort of bizarre or miraculous circumstance.

In our attempt to define, decide and stake out territory, in our desire to eliminate uncertainty, messiness and ambiguity, why do we narrow something that should remain mysterious and somehow bigger than ourselves to whatever novelty we might think of?

When I went to the Met as a Columbia undergraduate, I skirted around the fee since the college had bought membership for its students. As an art lover, I am now happy to pay for my visits -- I would hate for the Met to crumble like the beloved New York City Opera -- but I'm not sure everyone is.

In her TEDTalk, Alexa Meade tells us she came to art in her 20s, with apparent certainty and resolve. I, on the other hand, came kicking and screaming.