The Guyton Files

Jerry Saltz‘s Facebook page is a world unto itself. With as many “friends” as the Facebook Police will allow, Jerry regularly posts provocative questions that spark conversations that can go on for days, garnering responses from hundreds of artists of every age and stripe. What began as an experiment quickly took on a life of […]

Other Coast Art

Marsha Cottrell, A Black Powder Rains Down Gently On My Sleepless Night (detail), 2012; iron oxide on mulberry paper; Courtesy the artist; © Marsha Cottrell If you are contemplating a trip to San Francisco in the next year, do it before June 2013. That’s when the entire SFMOMA will close down til early 2016 for […]

In Praise of Small Art

Small art featured in Brett Baker’s online show of small works: Blades, 6 x 7 inches, egg tempera on calfskin parchment stretched on panel, by Altoon Sultan. (This painting hangs in my house and pleases me deeply every day.) Artist Lori Ellison posted the following essay on Facebook in response to notice of Brett Baker’s […]

Charting Territory

Harry Beck’s map of the London Underground. With slight modifications and changes, his original design is still the lingua franca of transporation mapping. Our minds create maps of every place we go. Apparently all animals do this, not just us. And those cognitive maps are not necessarily accurate or drawn to scale. Like the iconic […]