I’ve pulled down a few books from my library about primitive art. I am looking for some clues or insights into a personal question that has been lingering for some time: Why are non-Western, non-contextualized images increasingly compelling to me? Perhaps this can’t be parsed into logic and language–that’s a conclusion I’ve come to many […]
States of mind
Leaving it in the Unknown
Deliberately low-keyed art often resembles ruins, like neolithic rather than classical monuments, amalgams of past and future, remains of something “more,” vestiges of some unknown venture. The ghost of content continues to hover over the most obdurately abstract art. The more open, or ambiguous, the experience offered, the more the viewer is forced to depend […]
Wisdom from Hafiz
Tripping over Joy What is the difference Between your experience of Existence And that of a saint? The saint knows That the spiritual path Is a sublime chess game with God And that the Beloved Has just made such a Fantastic Move That the saint is now continually Tripping over Joy And Bursting out in […]
In the Throe of Wonder
I was introduced to the philosophical work of Jerome Miller a few years ago by my good friend Nicole Long. She studied with him in college and has been an emissary for his work ever since. I was signed up as a fan as soon as I stepped into his brilliant The Way of Suffering: […]
Morphic Photography
Ferrofluid with permanent magnets underneath (Image courtesy of Felice Frankel) Here are two provocative examples of morphing developments in photography, especially in the age of digital (and signficantly, nearly cost free and unlimited) options. The first features Felice Frankel, author of Envisioning Science. Frankel has come a long way in bringing meangingful visual imaging into […]
The Glass House Opens
Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Caanan, Connecticut I’m still thinking a lot about buildings and designs for living after reading Alain de Botton’s book (see yesterday’s posting below.) An article in the New York Times today highlights a legendary building, Philip Johnson’s Glass House, which will be open to the public later this month. […]
It’s All About the Light
I’m back from Mexico, but I can still feel the intense white light that burnishes the back of your eyes after just a few hours in that unabashed sunlight. Baja California Sur is a glorious combination of two large arc themes, operatic in a visual sort of way. On one hand you are never far […]
That’s Just Pinter Being Pinter
Paul Benedict and Max Wright I saw an excellent production of Harold Pinter’s 1975 play, No Man’s Land, at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge last night. While I respect Pinter’s larger than life influence on the theatre communities of both the US and the UK, he is not one of my favorite playwrights. My actor […]
Cave Art Reconsidered
Painted images from Chauvet Cave Horses drawn by Nadia at 3 years, 5 months Nicholas Humphrey, author and expert on the evolution of consciousness, wrote a paper several years ago comparing the cave art at Chauvet Cave with work produced by Nadia, an autistic child who lived in England, who was not able to employ […]
Lynn Davis
Many of you know that in addition to writing this blog, I maintain another blog called Slow Painting that filters through websites, publications and blogs for compelling excerpts. Slow Painting is a customized assemblage of art-related news, ideas and concepts as defined by my sensibilities. Every so often a Slow Painting find is so provocative […]