We are living at a time when equality is an increasingly sacred value. While my political leanings are deeply aligned with that idea, it doesn’t apply to the world of human passions. I don’t want what I adore to be parceled out into equally sized lots. Because after all, we love what we love. “Even […]
Author: deborahbarlow
Finding the Signals
“When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless […]
Stories, Integrity and Horizontalities
Slow Muse has been a personal repository for my thoughts and feelings about art, art making and creativity for almost 20 years. As the landscape of creativity has constantly changed, I have frequently been surprised by what persists and what does not. At this particular moment in time artistic expression has become increasingly politicized, then […]
Pell Lucy: GLANCE GANDER GAZE
The latest online exhibit of the Pell Lucy artist collective is now on view on Artsy.net. Glance Gander Gaze explores the many modalities of seeing and looking. The curatorial statement for the show is included below. Stop in to explore an exceptional selection of work by Pell Lucy artists. You can also review the roster […]
The History of Our Future
The Golden Record consists of 115 analog-encoded photographs, greetings in 55 languages, a 12-minute montage of sounds on Earth and 90 minutes of music. J Marshall – Tribaleye Images / Alamy I am admittedly enamored with the idea that things possess dimensions that can’t be seen. Artists are particularly drawn to this idea, but I was […]
Strangers Meet
At a time when things feel particularly frayed and fragile, finding a place of clarity and comfort is hard. Frequent reference has been made to the haunting the lines of W. B. Yeats’s 1919 poem, Second Coming: “The ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” Every […]
How I Learned to Drive
Paula Vogel wrote the play, How I Learned to Drive, by staying up all night for two weeks. She had secured a theater residency in Juneau, but unforeseen circumstances caused her to arrive empty handed. As a result, she was highly aware of an obligation to produce something quickly. The long days of sunlight, the […]
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Waltham Open Studios, 2023
For friends in the Boston area, Waltham Open Studios happens this weekend. Stop by! This is the third year I have participated in this long running tradition. I was surprised by how much I have enjoyed meeting new people who are interested in looking at and talking about art. Deborah Barlow 144 Moody Street Building […]
Stealing Bones
Kurt Vonnegut was famous for his conviction that all stories conform to very defined narrative shapes. He liked to chart out each storyline’s trajectory—he had about eight of them–and gave them names like “Man in Hole” and “Boy Meets Girl.” And now AI has demonstrated that these fundamental story forms are indeed legit–identifiable, indelible, ubiquitous. […]
More Than Just Out or In
“A cartographic conception is very distinct from the archaeological conception… The latter establishes a profound link between the unconscious and memory: it is a memorial, commemorative, or monumental conception…Maps, on the contrary, are superimposed in such a way that each map finds itself modified in the following map, rather than finding its origin in the […]