Installation view from George Wingate’s one day exhibit, Up Stairs In Sight,* a show of unconventional but undeniable brilliance by an artist more people should know Artistic gatekeeping. The role of the critic. The mantle of authority. The new democratization of how any of us can find, read, look and listen. Two years ago Morley […]
- Aesthetics
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Awesomeness is Good for You
Piero della Francesca (Tuscany 1412? – 1492, Tuscany),The Senigallia Madonna and Child with Two Angels Tempera and oil on wood. Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino. Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Most of my artist friends can speak about the exhilarating and very personal experience of being deeply moved by a work of […]
- Aesthetics
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Where it Mingles and Blurs
The New York Times named five novels as the best of 2013. Amazingly, two of them—both written by women—are about art and art making: The Flamethrowers*, by Rachel Kushner, and The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. I was enchanted by both. While Kushner’s novel takes place in the art world emerging around Soho in the 70’s […]
- Aesthetics
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Nozkowski: Art Objects are Gifts
Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled (7-107, LA III), 1998, oil on linen on panel, 22×28” (Photo: BOMB Magazine) [Note: Here is another post I have pulled up out of the Slow Muse archive from 2012. I am still a bit ham-handed from my surgery and typing is hard so I have been revisiting posts that speak to […]
- Aesthetics
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Gleeful and Outward Looking
Illustration for the essay, “Talent,” from Amy Leach’s “Things That Are.” (Pen-and-ink drawing by Nate Christopherson, courtesy of Milkweed Editions and the artist) I have been reading nonstop while my hand heals since there is really nothing I can do in the studio. The body does this part all on its own which, like a […]
- Art Making
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Silky Attention
The sand along the shore in Small Point, Maine: The water’s silky attention brought to bear [Note: I had surgery on my right hand this week so my ability to type has been compromised while it heals. I am reposting from a few years ago since Jane Hirshfield continues to be a guiding force for […]
A Truing of Vision
The round object above is a Moroccan hand made drum. It had one slight tear near the edge when I brought it into my studio several years ago. With time two fissures began to make their way slowly across the taut animal hide, following no pattern I would have expected. This self manifested morphing drum […]
- Land/earth
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Attention Flow
Sunrise over New York City as seen from the West Side In Alexandra Horowitz‘s new book, On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes, she explores the blocks around her home in New York City in the company of people with a particular expertise—an artist, a geologist, a self-professed “type nerd”, a field naturalist/insect advocate (among […]
The Light Princess
(Photo: A.R.T.) A young woman possesses no powers of gravity. She can neither walk on terra firma nor can she possess serious thoughts or tears of genuine emotion. She must take the journey to claim that quality of groundedness for herself that the rest of us take for granted. This fairytale, based on a Victorian […]
What We Can’t Not Do
If you are looking for light holiday viewing, Inside Llewyn Davis, the latest film by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, isn’t it. If however you are compelled by the power of myth, by the archetype of the artist as a dark hero on a difficult journey, or have firsthand knowledge of how success is often […]