Reflections of Commonwealth Avenue on a Boston University poster with a life of its own Discovering the selfless nature doesn’t have a monumental “Eureka!” quality. It is more like being continually perplexed, the way we feel when we’re looking for the car keys we’re so sure are in our pocket, or when the supermarket’s being […]
- Art Making
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The Periphery, Whole Fragments and Ruminations
Nigrassa, one of the pieces included in the show at Chautauqua Institution this summer, “On the Surface: Outward Appearances,” that has been sold and taken up residence elsewhere. Ann Lauterbach, poet and educator, is the author of The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience. As is usually the case, her insights about poetry […]
Doing Neverland
J. M. Barrie How does it happen, that a something—an image, a story, a meme—secures a spot in the cultural collective, that shared image/idea database full of entities everyone in our cultural milieu recognizes? Some are ancient, like the stories from the Greeks (Aphrodite, Apollo, Zeus) and the Bible (Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham), and […]
Useless Beauty
Who needs a peacock’s tail when you can build this for your lady love? The bower created by a male bowerbird. David Rothenberg is a jazz musician and a professor of philosophy. He has written a number of books, several of them focused on the interface between natural sounds (like the songs of birds and […]
Lessons from Bonnard
In his essay on Pierre Bonnard, The Art of Making a World (included in his book, Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa), Michael Kimmelman relates a conversation he once had with the photographer Cartier-Bresson. While viewing a self-portrait by Bonnard, Cartier-Bresson said, “You know, Picasso didn’t like Bonnard and I can […]
A Week Away
Titian’s Danaë from the Capodimonte Museum, Naples, on display at the National Museum in Washington DC I’m in DC for the week. There is always so much to see at the National Gallery, especially when accompanied by two engaging Renaissance art historians (AKA my daughter Kellin and her husband Sean, visiting from Florence.) I’ll be […]
The More Beautiful World
For people who spend a lot of time alone—by design—and are avowed introverts, the concept of social activism is more of a theological commitment than a behavior. Like that person who hates going to the gym, I have an abhorrence for meetings. If a cause requires me to attend any, I’m a no. I believe […]
The Art of Being Wooed
Charles Burchfield writing at his desk, by William Doran (Photo: Charles E. Burchfield Archives, Gift of William Doran) For years I had Charles Burchfield misfiled under “Depression Era Regional Artists” along with Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood. It wasn’t a file I spent much time rifling through, so my error wasn’t […]
- Art Making
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It’s The Honey
Dolice 1, 12 x 12″ on wood panel Nigrassa, 40 x 40″ on canvas Both paintings are from the upcoming show, “On the Surface: Outward Appearances”, at Chautauqua Institution, June 16 – August 19, 2014 For us, honey is a gift; for the bee, it is labor. –Jane Hirshfield The poet Jane Hirshfield is a […]
- Aesthetics
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In the End, You Can’t Tell Me What To Do
Louise Nevelson (Photo: Nancy R. Schiff—Hulton Archive/Getty Images) I long ago took the position that giving advice is a fool’s errand, especially with artists. My personal MO is right in line with the lyrics from Willie Nelson‘s recently released song, Band of Brothers: We are a band of brothers and sisters and whatever, On a […]