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 […]
Art
I Feel Your Pain
Desert landscape near Alice Springs, Australia I’ve gone through creative dry spells. Everybody does, but when it is happening to you, it is hard to not take it personally and forget that the condition is common. It is easier to talk about it when the episode is over. It’s a little like childbirth: Give me […]
Wisdom from the Art Tribe
Connecting—in the dark, in space, in time Some of you are part of the Jerry Saltz Facebook Tribe. And what a tribe it is, nearly 4600 strong and growing daily. For those of you who are not, here’s my take on what Jerry is doing on Facebook: By operating as more of an art advocate […]
Volcano Art
Munch’s The Scream More on the Iceland volcano, from an op ed piece in the New York Times by Simon Winchester, author of Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester compares our current struggles with a volcanic ash plume over Europe with the 1883 eruption on the island of Krakatoa between Java and Sumatra. More […]
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 […]
Cézanne: A Multiplicity of Successively Probed Sensations
Apples and Oranges, by Paul Cézanne (Photo: Galerie du Jeu de Paume, Paris) Proust was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer sat for several years on my bookshelf (the one that is, unfortunately, gravitationally challenged and is sagging precariously) waiting for its chance to get cracked open. That finally happened during those luxurious, divinely isolated hours […]
All That is Other and Beyond Us
Oaks tree in Cumbria Alain de Botton writes both fiction and nonfiction. His books are engaging, clever and just downright fun. Although I’ve never read any of his three novels (not sure why that is) I have every one of his nonfiction publications. His titles make picking up his books irresistible (IMHO), with names like […]
Books About Color
For anyone who is susceptible to the energetics of color (my hand is up), reading about it can also be intoxicating. Here are a few great books for those who revel in this inexplicably mysterious and lush bennie of life on this planet: *** Written by a journalist who travels the world exploring the original […]
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 […]
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The Primaries
Friedrich Nietzsche Bodies. Language. Expression. Metaphors. Meaning. That’s a list of issues that most people who make things think about. A lot. A recent article from the Boston Globe written by Drake Bennett touches on a lot of these themes, particularly how metaphor both comes from and impacts the way we think. Here’s a sampling: […]