Sammy Tunis as Ada Lovelace in Futurity (Photo: Evgenia Eliseeva/Boston Globe) In an interview with Tony Kushner that took place when his landmark play in two parts, Angels in America, had just opened in Los Angeles, he talked about the genesis of the idea for AA. It was the 1980s and he was living in […]
Art for Anyone
There are a few voices in my world who consistently ring true, like that neighbor who puts things back into perspective after a robbery down the street has everyone unduly fixated on urban crime. Jerry Saltz is one of those guys in the art world, and I repeatedly find his “set it right” point of […]
Olitski: The Landscape of His Dreams
Greek Princess 8, 1976, Courtesy of Estate of Jules Olitski/Licensed by VAGA, New York, Photo by Lee Stalsworth Revelation: Major Paintings by Jules Olitski, is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. (The show originated at the Kemper Art Museum in Kansas City, travels next to Toledo before opening within reach of […]
- Antiquities
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Powers of Life and Death
Lights at a roadside shrine In his introduction to Tantra Song (written about previously here) Lawrence Rinder invites us into the world of Tantric images by describing how he feels when he is out in the countryside, looking at the trees and the stars: I have little idea what I am looking at, even though […]
Moonscaping
George Wingate viewing “Candara” at the show in Providence (photo by Robert Hanlon) George Wingate, artist and life long friend made a trip down from Wenham to see the show at Rhode Island College, “Acquire/Inquire.” He sent me the photograph above with these simple words: standing before the moon. Oh that I could evoke that […]
Holding it All
Hold Everything Dear as the brick of the afternoon stores the rose heat of the journey as the rose buds a green room to breathe and blossoms like the wind as the thinning birches whisper their silver stories of the wind to the urgent in the trucks as the leaves of the hedge store the […]
The Gift of Time
Two women stroll among the walls of Halebid, built in the 9th century Sharing experiences from travels is a bit like sharing dreams: The iconography and narrative are personal and not well suited for public discourse. So other than sharing the rudimentaries, my report on my time in India will be succinct. A phrase or […]
On Blessed Hiatus
The many faces of India: A street in Mamallapuram in Southern India, 2008 The heart loves what it loves, and mine keeps coming back to India. So how grateful I am that after four years I am returning again. I could try to explain my attraction but that seems unnecessary given the land’s long history […]
- Aesthetics
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The Constellation of Things
The Yearling, by Donald Lipski, now installed in Denver In David Levi Strauss’ book, From Head to Hand, he begins the chapter on sculptor Donald Lipski with three quotes and this paragraph: The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges. –The Blind Man (1917) Why not look at the […]
- Aesthetics
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The Eye is Part of the Mind
Untitled (Seven Mountains) by Ursula von Rydingsvard (Photo by Ben Aqua) In the introduction to David Levi Strauss‘ book From Head to Hand: Art and the Manual, he points out that “in an increasingly mediated world, one of the most radical things artists can do is to use their hands.” He goes on to quote […]