As most of my readers know, I rely on poets to describe—as much as it can be described—what takes place in the isolation of my painting studio day after day, month after month, year after year. There are so many who can wield the word wand so much better than I can, many of whom […]
Uncategorized
Spirit and Body
One morning beginning to notice which thoughts pull the spirit out of the body, and which return it. How quietly the abandoned body keens, like a bonsai maple surrounded by her dropped leaves. Rain or objects call the forgotten back. The droplets’ placid girth and weight. The table’s lack of ambition. How strange it is […]
Life’s Afternoon: Making Art in Old Age
Monet at Giverny In her New York Times review of the new book by Nicholas Delbanco, Lastingness: The Art of Old Age, Brooke Allen makes it clear that she, like me, was excited about the topic. Making art when you are older: What shifts? What shows up? What happens to our expression as we age? […]
Left Coast, North and South
Matthew Barney leaves his mark, Drawing Restraint, inside SFMOMA Follow up on an earlier post: Chloe Veltman has written a very good piece in the Times highlighting the two shows I reviewed here (Reporting on the Other Coast) currently on view at MOCA Los Angeles and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I am […]
- Science
- ...
The Mystery of Memory
The Persistance of Memory, by Dali Penelope Lively has a view of memory that reflects my own beliefs about this extraordinary thing we can do with our minds. In an article in the Guardian by Sarah Crown, Lively’s view is stated clearly: “The idea that memory is linear,” says Penelope Lively, crisply, “is nonsense. What […]
Arts Funding, Policy and Politics
The politics of art. That isn’t my field, and yet it is. I listened to the back and forth about arts funding during the Stimulus Bill discussions with mixed emotions. Sometimes the arguments rang true, sometimes they didn’t. The fact is that OF COURSE we need to fund and support the arts. Those who think […]
- Uncategorized
- ...
Report from the North
It’s hard to not be cynical when the talking heads announce that the US economy is “officially” in a recession and has been since December 2007. The absurdity of not being able to name what everybody knew until a year after the fact is one more piece of what feels like the cold-blooded machinations of […]
- Poetry
- ...
Juan Ramon Jiménez: Strange Joy
I have shared the poetry of Juan Ramon Jiménez here before (most recently on September 3), and recently I have been even more compelled by his work. Poet Robert Bly’s volume, Lorca & Jiménez, brings together the works of these two extraordinary Spanish poets and offers a window into the creative context of Jiménez’ view […]
Schooled by Sand
I just returned from three days in Maine. My friend Katie is part of a family that has been going to the same hidden spot–Maine’s largest stretch of undeveloped shoreline–for four generations, and it is through her that I came to know and love this exquisitely unpopulated, shimmeringly pristine beach. Everything here revolves around the […]
Reflectivity
An article about mirrors appeared in the New York Times two weeks ago, and its contents have continued to nag my mind. (An excerpt is on Slow Painting if you don’t want to read the whole piece.) There are a number of threads in this piece that would be worth some time to delve into […]