Let’s face it: artists walk a pathless path where nothing is clear The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the […]
- Aesthetics
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Being Seen
Close up of the surface of a painting from the Orbilinia series I am honored—and really humbled—by a terrific post written about me and my work by Sloan Nota. We have been friends for about 20 years. While our orientation to many aspects of art and art making are very different, we share a mutual […]
Your Own Way of Looking at Things
Solitary boat man on the river in Hampi, India When I Met My Muse I glanced at her and took my glasses off – they were still singing. They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and then ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and knew […]
Embracing the Ephemeral
Still in tact: The view of the Pacific from UCSC’s Porter College (AKA to some of us as College Five) “Material Ephemera” at UC Santa Cruz Another view Long time friend Alicia Falsetto at the artist reception on Saturday Things, people, ideas—they operate with a certain kind of circularity. That coming round again has becomes […]
Material Ephemera
Jakara 5, part of the exhibit, “Material Ephemera,” currently on view at UC Santa Cruz I will be away for a week for my show, “Material Ephemera,” on view through May 13 at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Porter College. I am speaking at the artist reception on Saturday, April 27. I am […]
The Don’t Know Mind
. . . and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes; and to keep on not knowing something important. –Wislawa Szymborska The idea of fragments and incompleteness was the topic of a blog post I wrote two weeks ago (Pieced Cloth) but it became the predominant leitmotif for life this past week. […]
Darkness, Then Some Light
Projections on BAM this week (Photo: Laughing Squid) My previous post, Paying Attention, was written just one day before the Boston Marathon Bombings. Paying attention? Indeed. Since the events on Monday I have been left feeling the deep sorrow that hung palpably over this city. That’s all any of us have been talking about. But […]
- Aesthetics
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Paying Attention
Ice patterns in winter: enchantment for free Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager. –Susan Sontag Susan Sontag’s words are inspriring for anyone, not just […]
- Aesthetics
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Pieced Cloth
Fragment of cloth in the Islamic galleries at the Metropolitan Museum Breaks are always, and fatally, reinscribed in an old cloth that must continually, interminably, be undone. –Jacques Derrida, Positions Sometimes it isn’t just about the whole cloth. This past weekend I thought a lot about fragments, about the shards of incompleteness that are “continually, […]
- Art Making
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The Deeper Thing
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. […]