The view of Coolidge Point near Manchester Massachusetts and home to my friend Laurel, a hermit artist extraordinaire. Being a 21st century Thoreauian is a singular stance. More on the theme of isolation, solitude, quiet (see the earlier post Where it Works.) Online artists and friends Walt Pascoe, Luke Storms and Holly Friesen directed me […]
Art
- Art Making
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Where it Works
A shelf of visual stimulants in my studio The artistic value of hermiting and the need for isolation has been an ongoing theme on this blog, so of course I was intrigued reading Tony Perrottet‘s essay in the Sunday New York Times Book Review about writers, isolation—self-inflicted and otherwise—and the discipline needed to work. (Curiously, […]
- Aesthetics
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Unchained
Many of you have undoubtedly heard about the Chain Letter Show. The idea was a robust one—using the existing network of artists, create an international, artist-curated, pop up event at several locations around the world all at the same time. Ten artists were asked, and then they asked ten more, who then asked ten more. […]
Warburg and the Bruins
Aby Warburg, unconventional and still controversial art historian all these years later, made a trip to the Black Mesa in Arizona in 1896 and encountered the Hopi Indians. An expert on Florentine Renaissance art, he had his aha moment in realizing how similar the highly ritualized Hopi dances were to the elaborate court festivals held […]
Keeping it Fresh
Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee was written a fresh and engaging review of the Fluxus show currently at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth. Generally known in the US through the work of artists and musicians like George Maciunas, John Cage and La Monte Young, the Fluxus movement capitalized on the high jinx, random access, […]
Art and Health
Pyrre, from a new series of paintings (Graphite, gold pigment, wax medium on wood panel) Thoughts worth sharing by two artists I admire: *** Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said. –Louise Bourgeois *** What gets an artist out of bed is the possibility of actually making […]
Other Worlds
Warren Burger, by George Augusta My friend Carl Belz has written about his encounters with portrait art while heading up the Rose Museum at Brandeis a few years back. He was asked to recommend a portrait painter for the retiring chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees. ” I immediately suggested Andy Warhol,” Belz writes, […]
- Art Making
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Thingness
Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, featured in the film MANA: Beyond Belief, is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Burma. Tradition claims that the boulder was placed on the cliff 2500 years ago by Burmese spirits. A gilded boulder sits on top and is believed to contain a hair of the Buddha. ______ This is a Wonderful Poem Come […]
- Aesthetics
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Staggering Labor and Jolts of Luck
A vacant loft in Chelsea that we just happened upon recently. Ah, the provocation of empty space. It always excites my “if only!” energy. Often discussed, but still a furtive topic: How does an artist finds his or her voice? An identifiable style, that creative stride that becomes signatory? The search for that essence is […]
Tracking the (American) Self
Brace’s Rock, by Fitz Henry Lane (1863) Barbara Novak begins her book, Voyages of the Self: Pairs, Parallels and Patterns in American Art and Literature, with an exploration of the problematic concept of self: The idea of self is…an artificial construct…Yet the word is common enough even in everyday usage for a cultural community to […]