Breaking it Down

Peter Plagens and Jerry Saltz (Photo: Art Forum) I’m not that worried about people in general liking my painting (de gustibus, what makes horse races, etc.) because I’m more or less used to their not, generally speaking. My abstract paintings are, I think, too craggy or disjointed or garish (although I have gone through a […]

Two Chords Are Enough

The cast of Woody Sez (Photo: Wendy Mutz) One of the things I love about India is that the stories most sacred to the culture are preserved everywhere. From street shrines to oversized temple statues, references to the ancient Sanskrit epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are ubiquitous. After a while even interlopers like […]

Color Dogmatism

Josef Albers, the Color Czar (for some folks anyway) “In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is—as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” –Josef Albers “If you don’t do it my way, I suggest you commit suicide.” –Josef Albers How humans perceive color […]

Rapt with Satisfied Attention

“Pale Pair (for Malevich)”, hand dyed wool on linen, by Altoon Sultan (Photo: Altoon Sultan) In recent years I’ve begun to think of all my various endeavors — painting, textiles, photography, blogging — as part of a whole artistic life, broader and more ordinary than my New York art-world life. I want to make art […]

Making, Matter and Unity

“Surfaces seduce and entities evolve: It is exquisite getting lost in the mysterious pageant of the making.” (Close up of a recent piece) I spend a lot of time alone. But being isolated for most of the day doesn’t mean the mind stops chattering. It chatters constantly, but the dialogue is either internal (between entities […]