(Photo: The Bang Group) I admire an idea that can travel — one that moves from its native domain into a completely different context and arrives carrying new meaning. Darwin’s theory of evolution does this. So does quantum theory, still unsettling our assumptions about what reality is made of. Recently I encountered two more ideas […]
Containers and Convergences
I have written many times about the concept of the container, a notion I keep coming back to. The most familiar version is the human body, holding all that living matter and consciousness inside a remarkably fragile but durable satchel of skin. The variants are many. I have come to view containers as the “safety […]
Holding the Whole
August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean (Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography) The “Hard Problem” — David Chalmers‘ term for the scientific struggle to explain consciousness — is increasingly entering the cultural conversation. We still don’t understand why physical brain processes give rise to subjective, first-person experience: the felt quality of seeing red, of grief, of […]
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Sarah Robinson and the Architecture of Resonance
It may be a case of selective viewing, but I feel sure there is a fundamental shift happening in how Western culture describes the connection between the mind, the body and the physical world. My primary interest areas are visual art, literature, cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, cultural theory, psychedelic studies/neuroscience, spirituality. And as wide ranging […]
The Ethics of Minimalism
We Had a World, at the Huntington Theater (Calderwood Pavilion) Photo: Annielly Camargo A noticeable shift is emerging in contemporary theater and cinema, one that values a stripped-down, elemental storytelling. And for many reasons, it feels less like an aesthetic choice and more like a cultural necessity. Joshua Harmon’s We Had a World (Huntington Theater, […]
Pell Lucy: LUCID GROUND
Giving attention to a work of art is like willingly entering an alternative atmosphere. Time slows, then unexpected thresholds appear and reveal themselves. How vital it is in these times to have a place where experience is not being mediated, captioned, or categorized. Finding solace in that zone is not escapism. It is engagement in […]
Pell Lucy: THE UNEXPLAINED NECESSARY
Lynette Haggard, Possibly Biased, from the Pell Lucy exhibit, The Unexplained Necessary To view to entire exhibit on Artsy, click here. These are not easy times to speak of beauty, mystery, or quietude. The world feels increasingly harsh—bluntly shaped by politicians, billionaires, demagogues, and the machinery of attention. The rest of us are being trained […]
Shape and Story
There are times when content strains against the limits of a container, when the material itself feels too unwieldy, too fragile, or too charged to be held by any known form. And yet, again and again, artists attempt the improbable: to find the shape that can hold what feels unholdable. This negotiation is not new. […]
Enchantment
Opening reception for Enchantment, October 25, 2025 at Lockwood Gallery, Kingston New York We are living through a moment when doubt has become our default posture. To be intelligent, we are told, is to suspect; to be contemporary is to remain at a critical distance. Wonder is seen as indulgent and naïve. The spiritual […]
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The Long View
This was written after the opening of The Long View: Women Artists in the Studio, at Suffolk University (October 14- November 21.) The exhibition is the first of three that will take place over the course of the academic year, bringing together Boston area women artists whose lives have been shaped by years of steadily […]