John Tallman’s engaging blog, Color Chunks, has been posting examples of color from every possible setting sent to him by other artists. The range is part of the fun, from an array of tarps on a rooftop to an expanse of landscape. Today he posted three images of mine—one from the Australian Outback, from my […]
Killarney Clary: Prose Poems
My friend Lisa, a poet who also speaks fluent visual, sent me a book, By Common Salt, a collection of poems by Killarney Clary. “She’s a quiet poet, but one of my favorites,” L wrote on the card inside the package. I sat down immediately and read the entire book cover to cover. Clary is […]
Cosmic Swat
God’s Acrostic What if the universe is God’s acrostic? He’s sneaking bits of proverbs into seismic variations; Abbreviating psalms in flecks of snow. Try to read them, says a comet, If you dare. Fine print. What you’ve been waiting for. Twisted in the DNA of marmosets: Hermetic feedback to your tight-lipped prayer. Examine indentations left […]
This Plague of Paint
View of my studio, looking north Friend and artist Pam Farrell has invited artists to do a show and tell on her blog. Calling her project Interactive Studio Blog Post–ISBP–Pam now has nearly 10 artists who have participated. Their postings typically feature a work or body of work and an image of their studio. Pam […]
The Single Body Alone in the Universe
Still image from the film Pillow Book Sex Without Love How do they do it, the ones who make love without love? Beautiful as dancers, Gliding over each other like ice-skaters over the ice, fingers hooked inside each other’s bodies, faces red as steak, wine, wet as the children at birth, whose mothers are going […]
Stitched Together Woman
The Feejee Mermaid August, 1842. She never lived separated. Orangutan torso and fish tail cut in half and sewn together to make one. The crowd saw only the ghosts of her pendulous breasts; they dried in the terrible manner of flesh. For long hair, a baboon head became necessary. The singular perfection of craft rendered […]
Paper Boats
I’ve had a lot of conversations recently with other bloggers (as well as some committed non-bloggers) about the pros and cons of what this thing is that so many of us are collectively doing. So finding this quote in the “Up Front” section of the Sunday Times Book Review seemed well timed. Leah Hager Cohen […]
- 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 […]
Signals to Attend
Blogging is its own kind of neighborhood. You share the road, the same convenience store, snowstorms and sports teams. When someone suddenly moves away and leaves no forwarding address, it’s like you lost something that didn’t really belong to you but felt like it did. So here’s celebrating the return of a former denizen of […]