“Work of Art: The Next Great Artist” contestants, judges, host and mentor. (Photo: Bravo) Sebastian Smee, a most thoughtful and open-minded art critic who writes for the Boston Globe, has written a review of the oft-discussed, highly charged topic of Bravo’s new reality art series, “Work of Art.” For many of us, making art couldn’t […]
Art
- Art
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The Legend of Louise Gone Viral
Annie Leibovitz’s Louise Bourgeois Louise Bourgeois’ passing has set the ripples in motion in every direction. After my eulogizing post about her work and her life yesterday, I was even more curious about the stories about her that Jerry Saltz gleaned from his increasingly muscular Facebook Tribe. And I mean muscular in the most flattering […]
Catch All
A few notes and comments: From the web *** Norkae 1, mixed media on wood panel My work is being featured on Design Squared, a visually stunning blog written by Barbara Ashfield and David Hansen. Located in San Francisco, Ashfield and Hansen are both designers who possess fine sensibilities, and I am honored to be […]
Kenneth Noland (1924-2010)
Kenneth Noland passed away in early January. Although this is several weeks after the fact, my response to the Roberta Smith article in the Sunday Times has led to a more contemplative approach to the strange journey of painting that I have observed during my many years as an artist and art lover. Mark Dagley […]
Remote Futures, Remote Pasts
Salt crystals on the Spiral Jetty, Utah When a place is lifeless or unreal, there is almost always a mastermind behind it. It is so filled with the will of its maker that there is no room for its own nature. –Christopher Alexander, one of my ideological mentors, as quoted by Edward Hollis in The […]
Only at Funerals, Weddings and Other Disasters: Maggi Hambling
(Photograph: Alicia Canter) Maggi Hambling, another sassy candidate for “ladette” along with Tracey Emin, is an English artist whose work I follow and whose approach to art and life is refreshingly direct. Here’s her kind of epigrammatic wit from a piece in the Guardian: Are you healthy? Early every morning, at least. I do a […]
Face Against the Glass
Arombell 1, 14 x 14″, mixed media on wood panel I’m heading into the final lap of this preparatory marathon. Postcards for my upcoming show go out this week, so my face is against the glass. (If you would like to be on my mailing list, send me an email with your snail mail address.) […]
Boland and Van Eyck
Domestic Interior The woman is as round as the new ring ambering her finger. The mirror weds her. She has long since been bedded. There is about it all a quiet search for attention, like the unexpected shine of a despised utensil. The oils, the varnishes, the cracked light, the worm of permanence–– all of […]
- Aesthetics
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Hypo-Hope
Today is the last day of the show Drawn to Detail, at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln Massachusetts. From their description of the show: Drawn to Detail features a variety of contemporary drawings with a very particular focus. This exhibition displays the work of 26 American artists who explore extreme attention to detail, obsessive mark-making, […]
- Aesthetics
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Finding the Edge
One of my art professors had a spiel about how to push a work to its farthest edge by reminding us that a great work of art almost doesn’t work—but it does. It was his way of getting his students to take risks, to push out beyond what feels safe. There’s really no other way […]