Officially known as ACT-CL J0102-4915, the galaxy cluster has been nicknamed El Gordo. “This cluster is the most massive, the hottest, and gives off the most X-rays of any known cluster at this distance or beyond,” said Felipe Menanteau of Rutgers University. (Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/J.Hughes et al, Optical: ESO/VLT/Pontificia Universidad. Catolica de Chile/L.Infante & SOAR […]
The Pleasures of Spectatorism
On paper, Peter Clothier‘s career looks like that of a successful academic. He was an art school dean at USC, Loyola Marymount and Otis Art Institute. He published numerous books including art criticism, poetry and memoirs. So it was refreshing to read his book of personal essays, Persist, and to find out he wasn’t inclined […]
New Domain for Slow Muse
Golagai 2, the painting source for the new heading above Update for my readers: The URL for Slow Muse has changed from www.slowmuse.wordpress.com to www.slowmuse.com. An automatic redirect has been placed on the old site so it should be seamless for all subscribers. This should make access easier in the long run, and I hope […]
Born Things
Shoji Hamada How easy it is to slip into busy. Busy, and disconnected from the core of things. This morning I found a needed course correction courtesy of Sarah Robinson‘s Nesting: Body, Dwelling, Mind: Cognitive scientists tell us that it takes time for the conscious mind to extract latent patterns within a diversity of superficially […]
- Aesthetics
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Durienism
Smells like hell but taste like heaven, or as one writer aptly described the dual pleasure and pain of the durian fruit: “It’s like eating the most delicious custard out of a toilet bowl.” It’s something I think about frequently: What if you really dislike an artist—or a thinker—in their real life form but you […]
- Aesthetics
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Knowingly Subjective
All the world as seen through the lens of a crystalline polythene grid of air pockets “Of course one always has the same theme. Everyone has her theme. She should move around in that theme.” So claims Austrian author Thomas Bernhard. Similarly, artist Lucian Freud was reported to have said, “Everything is autobiographical, everything is […]
Signature of the Landscape
Close up of Nagala that, from a certain angle, feels more planetary than painting I’ve been in a particular kind of intimacy with my latest body of work (such a wonderful phrase to describe a variety of artifacts that feel connected…) Yes, you bring them into existence. You labor over every inch of their surface. […]
- Aesthetics
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Bento Reimagined
The pleasures of making marks In writing Bento’s Sketchbook: How does the impulse to draw something begin?, John Berger has fashioned a book that is a hybrid cobbling of many facets of the his persona—memoirist, philosopher, art historian, artist, political essayist, cultural critic. Berger has a long history as a writer and a well recognized […]
Aboriginal Art Collections in America
Lupulnga, by Makinti Napanangka I was first introduced to Aboriginal painting in the early 90’s when my friend Colleen Burke returned from the Australian Outback with a cache of gorgeous pieces on bark and canvas. I sat for hours with her paintings and searched constantly for what few books were available in this country (it […]
- Aesthetics
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Richter by the Sea
I just returned from a week in the Outer Banks with my three sisters. Beautiful and remote, that slim slice of land felt even more so with whole sections of the road washed out from Hurricane Sandy and only traversable via 4 wheel drive. Later in the week the road was closed down altogether due […]