Japanese garden at the Huntington Library, San Marino CA Wait Chop, hack, slash; chop, hack, slash; cleaver, boning knife, ax— not even the clumsiest clod of a butcher could do this so crudely, time, as do you, dismember me, render me, leave me slop in a pail, one part of my body a hundred years […]
The Whitney and Other Museum Sorrows
Roberta Smith continues her one-woman campaign (or so it seems—are there others on this bandwagon?) of bringing thoughtful and reasonable thinking to the world of art making, viewing and buying. Like so many other subcultures, this is one that regularly runs off the rails and into the hollers of ego, greed and elitism. Her recent […]
Spring Leaves the Station
A visual/verbal commentary on a few days in New York City, where spring has come and spread its gorgeousness everywhere. First on the list: The High Line, my favorite urban touchstone for seasonal drift. Two views looking south from 20th street—two months ago and this weekend: Comparing urban flora and fauna in February and then […]
The Broken Mind
Path following, reconsidered: Not sure where this one is going other than away (Sidewalk markings in Boston) Looking back over the last few months, I have been sensing a particular leitmotif in my thoughts, postings, concerns. It isn’t as easily identifiable as a melodic sequence in music, but I can feel something taking form, as […]
A Recess of the Nuptial Kind
Steely and brilliant Jessica (AKA Dr. Salt) with her Uncle Dave, several years before she was mowed down by love…it happens! I’m out of town for a couple of days to celebrate the wedding of my niece Jessica. I’ll be back next Monday.
Aware, Aware, Aware
Points of light: From the Kiki Smith installation at the DeYoung Museum, San Francisco If you don’t look at things through your concepts, you’ll never be bored. Every single thing is unique. Every sparrow is unlike every other sparrow despite the similarities. It’s a great help to have similarities, so we can abstract, so that […]
Open Hand, Open Mind
A moment of homage to the hand. My hand. Your hand. I started the morning reading about the relationship between a person’s problem solving skills and their ability to work with his or her hands. The correlation is significant enough that some recruiters look for cerebral problem solving candidates with car repair experience on their […]
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Making Room
Seafaring Hokule’a Wade Davis is an anthropologist and ethno-botanist whose passion for unsung and underserved cultures has made him a TED talk repeater. His compelling book, The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, is transcripts of radio lectures he delivered two years ago. Each chapter highlights his experiences with indigenous people all […]
The Evanescent, the Mysterious and the Intuitive
Stadia II, by Julie Mehretu (Photo credit: Richard Stoner, Copyright 2007 Julie Mehretu) I’m just coming out of what feels like a deep sleep. It was in fact not a sleep at all but a protracted and extremely focused period of time working in my studio. Making: it’s a strange state of mind, hard to […]
Occultation
I’m Going to Start Living Like a Mystic Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall. The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field, each a station in a pilgrimage—silent, pondering. Blue flakes of light falling across their bodies are the ciphers of a […]