Of all the poets who delve into writing, creativity and the nature of art making, Jane Hirshfield is the closest to my way of seeing things. I go back to her books over and over again. Now another to add to my library: Hiddenness, Uncertainty, Surprise: Three Generative Energies of Poetry. These three essays were […]
- Aesthetics
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The Confirmation Bias
Imagined map of the word, Japanese I am reading a book recommended by my daughter Kellin Nelson: The Art of Thinking Clearly, by Rolf Dobelli. It’s designed with the 21st century reader in mind—succinct, straight talking advice on rampantly human cognitive errors in 99 chapters, each only a few pages long. Dobelli nails all of […]
Upcoming Show in California
My new exhibit, Behind, Beyond, Beneath: Scaling the Continuum will open April 25 at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka California. The show features paintings from a variety of series that I have worked on over the last five years but held together by an ongoing exploration into the “micro to macro” span […]
- Aesthetics
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Painting with your Guts
Claerwen James (Photo: London Evening Standard) Every artist has a personal story of how she ended up spending a lifetime doing this thing that is all-consuming. It’s a strange decision really, that willingness to give yourself over to a passion that takes hold as soon as you awake and stays resident, in background or foreground, […]
- Art Making
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Tuttle Truths
Richard Tuttle (Photo: PBS) The most reliable speaker about art and art making from where I sit: Richard Tuttle. In this interview with Ross Simonini in Art in America, he touches on many of the themes that are all over my writings on Slow Muse. Here are a few that are particularly important to me […]
Feeling a Presence
Meditation garden, Osmosis Sanctuary Weather ran the curriculum in Boston this winter. The coursework included deep dives into acceptance, patience, stoic detachment and mastery in moving to Plan B (or C or D) quickly. And not getting angry or taking any of it personally. I learned a lot, but it is that course you hope […]
Staying Curious
Robert Irwin The one and only Robert Irwin, saying it in his inimitable plain speak: *** Some people call it “the inner life of the painting,” all that romantic stuff, and I guess that’s a way of talking about it. But shapes on a painting are just shapes on a canvas unless they start acting […]
Looking for Answers and Other Approximations
The weather has held New Englanders in its thrall for weeks now, dominating conversations in real life as well as updates on Twitter and Facebook. Weather has become a persona, one that willfully went rogue and is keeping the whole neighborhood up with an endless rant and rave. Please, just go home and go to […]
Hunkering Down
My street in Brookline Parking lot at my studio in South Boston South Boston icicle fest Just about everyone I know in New England has been pushed to the edge of the weather tolerance spectrum. We’re already in the red zone and now another blizzard with a foot of snow is heading at us this […]
The Longing to Work
I have been house bound more days this winter than any I can remember. For the second day in a row the trains and busses in Boston are not running. With six feet of snow in 30 days and more coming (along with a bitter blast of Arctic cold), traveling the five miles from my […]