Studio view, South Boston Art making is, for me, a zone of inchoate nonlinearity, one that does not have the Wallace Stevensish delineations* to mark direction or any measure of “progress” (a word that, these days in particular, seems to always need to wear a pair of quotes.) Mostly I am thankful for having worked […]
The Ideal of Emptiness
The ideal of emptiness: Not there yet, but moving in that direction, the Fisher Center at Bard College designed by Frank Gehry I’ve written previously about the slim but beguiling book that I found at the William Stout bookstore in San Francisco, Poems for Architects by Jill Stoner (my earlier post is Poetry and Space). […]
Both/And, With a Bit of Pure Paralyzed
Winter view looking out from my friend Anne’s house in Carson New Mexico. The chair feels inhabited, and yet not. To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. –Lao Tzu And what do you get when you are in search of both? Martha Beck, a fan of the mangled […]
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A Bit More
March, a month to think about what green means A few follow ons to earlier posts… *** One more thought on Shenk’s book about genius…A quote from Arthur Schopenhauer: Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. *** A few more places online where you […]
Practice, With Frequent Failures
Research continues in a pursuit of the how, why and where of who we are. A new book, The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong, by David Shenk is reviewed by Annie Murphy Paul in the Sunday New York Times Book Review. And for […]
Seeking Sonority
Edwina Leapman, Green Shade About 20 years ago, Wendy Beckett (AKA Sister Wendy) was busy bringing art history to the masses with her BBC shows and books. She’s not in the limelight these days but I still treasure my copy of her now out of print book from 1988, Contemporary Women Artists. Beckett was very […]
Ready to Embrace You, If You Would Just Turn Around
It’s so fragile anything can kill it— one cold night, the smoking chimney too far off in the distance, another drought, everyone at the table either drunk or estranged; but like a fisted bud, it rides out even the deluge that bends bough to ground, and so persists—sometimes unsure, like leaves curling and uncurling outside […]
Visualizing Online
Every once in a while you find something online that well, defies description. Here’s two for you: 1. Synchronous Objects The site is a project between choreographer William Forsythe and Ohio State University’s Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) and the Department of Dance. The approach explored is a kind of dancing/data […]
Spry, Wise and Distinguised
A special message for all my younguns friends out there: Beware of contempt about growing old. It may be harmful to your health later on. As reported by Kay Lazar in the Boston Globe, what you think about aging while you are still young can impact how it happens to you when it does: When […]
Ample Room to Maneuver
In his essay “Light and Space and Darkness: Taking Painting Full Circle in the Wireless World” (published in Darren Waterston: Representing the Invisible) David Pagel had me at hello. He’s a stylist of the finest art writing order, and he brings the inchoate beauty of Waterson’s work as close to language as I can imagine […]