This short piece by Jonathan Jones (in The Guardian) captures rather succinctly many of the frustrations I have written about here in earlier posts. We are currently living through a period of inappropriate dependence on language to extol and explain what is often beyond language in the visual arts. Enough words! My voice joins others […]
Art
Meaning and Presence
I found an article in The Independent yesterday that I posted on my filter blog Slow Painting. It has dominated my thinking all day. In a singularly succinct manner, it captures a core set of issues that are at the center of my disaffection with a number of trends in contemporary art. These are some […]
Interior Space Deep in the Human Heart
Early on in my art education, a professor told me a parable I have never forgotten. Long ago, an emperor in China loved ducks. Inordinately. His passion was so overwhelming that he called forth the greatest artist and calligrapher in his kingdom and made his request: I want you to create the ultimate image of […]
Phenomenal Presence: Robert Irwin
Robert Irwin The books stacked by my bed may appear to be pliantly passive, but don’t be fooled: the daily jostling that rotates one to the top spot is a highly competitive challenge. Feelings have been hurt, I can sense it, when that slim volume of finely chiseled poetry gets usurped by, dare I say […]
The Schmooze Factor
One of my favorite bloggers is G, the genius behind Writer Reading. A few days ago she posted an extremely thought-provoking piece called Are Writers Ever Really Loners? that I have been mulling over ever since. She probes the often disruptive relationship between the “solitary” act of writing and the role of interacting with the […]
Hiroshi Sugimoto: Take Me There
The work of Hiroshi Sugimoto cannot be comprehended without having been experienced in the flesh. Every artist believes this about their work, but in some circumstances it goes beyond optimal and moves into the imperative. So it is with Sugimoto’s photographs. (I have included this reproduction as an indicator but not the thing itself.) The […]
Lessons in Tenacity
The World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893 This morning I excerpted from an article in the Chicago Tribune about Daniel Burnham on my Slow Painting blog. For those of you who have read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, you will recognize his name. Burnham was the architect and visionary behind the magical Chicago […]
Black Sand Muse
Another day of rag and bone shopping, of gentle and cautious gestures, of softly silencing the voice of judgment, of speaking in a quiet voice when I want to be screaming. This is my courtship of the muse, I remind myself. The process is a dance of seduction, and success requires great patience and focus. […]
Court and Spark
I had my three children in three years. (It didn’t take much back then, just washing our clothes in the same batch could have done the trick…) During those years when they were small, I took some time off from painting. Once I was out of the acute care phase and could consider getting back […]
Clearing the Decks
During a time when I am still sitting in the silence—in the thinking and feeling rather than the doing, making, manifesting—my thoughts have been drawn to examples of significant disruptions in the flow of artistic output. Not just my own, but others. Probably the standout example from the recent past that is pointed to most […]