From the Leonardo Drew exhibit at the deCordova Museum. Drew said he has noticed that the more he touches things, the better they get. (More about this amazing show coming here soon.) This morning I tried to describe to my friend Linda how the energy in my studio can shift suddenly in ways I find […]
Author: Deborah Barlow
Abuses of Power
Frank Stella, Chocorua IV, 1966, Fluorescent alkyd and epoxy paints on canvas, 120 x 128 x 4 in., Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College Abuses of power and money, decisions made by self serving Philistines, the infuriatingly short sighted policies that have ramifications way beyond the bounds of the elite board room—nothing new in any […]
Passion Distilled: James Magee
View of The Hill, James Magee’s masterwork in west Texas I finally received my copy of James Magee, The Hill, by Richard R. Brettell and Jed Morse. This publication accompanies a show of Magee’s work currently on exhibit at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas through November 28. The Hill is hard to describe. Yes, […]
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White Light
Portion of an image by Anna Hepler from her show at the Portland Museum of Art this summer ____ This unexpected report from the New York Times: Jane Moss, vice president for programming at Lincoln Center, talks about her ideas behind the 3 week long White Light Festival, an event that is explicitly based on […]
Good Ideas are Networks
At a AAAS meeting back in the 70s, I remember hearing Stephen Jay Gould outline the then new theory of punctuated equilibrium. In addition to the long periods of statis in the evolution of a species, Gould also demonstrated his belief that evolution was like a many sided polygon wheel—it doesn’t roll forward smoothly but […]
A Worldwide Eschatological Whoopjamboreehoo…or Not
I have a restlessness that constantly moves between two extreme nodes—from the “language is useful” end of the spectrum to the “language is not useful” at the other. When you find yourself hovering closer to the latter, the chatty wisdom of someone like Tom Robbins can feel comforting. Here’s one from my ever-reliable wisdom source, […]
Disappearing, Reappearing
A Disappearing Number (Photo: Tristram Kenton) National Theater Live brings stage productions in London to cinema settings around the world, and the most recent was a broadcast of A Disappearing Number, a production by Simon McBurney’s Complicite Theatre Company. This latest play offers up a meditation on a variety of themes but is primarily structured […]
Barbara Grad at the Danforth Museum
Barbara Grad, at the Danforth Museum Some folks carry a high attraction factor, that something that makes them irresistible and noteworthy. In Boston’s art scene—particularly among women artists—Barbara O’Brien has her own version of the Star Wars’ tractor beam. Those grappling rays of magnetism were in full force today at the Danforth Museum in Framingham. […]
- Aesthetics
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Lifelong Construction
] Random dust patterned on a surface in my studio _______ I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenalin but is, rather, the gradual, […]
Judy Pfaff at Braunstein Quay
Lemongrass, by Judy Pfaff (Braunstein Quay Gallery) At a pre-opening soirée for Judy Pfaff’s show at the Braunstein Quay Gallery in San Francisco last week, Pfaff talked about how different—and personally satisfying—it has been to be working in her studio again. So much of her focus recently has been installation-centric: massive venues and complex sculptural […]