Above: Microscape Series (River Poem #2) by Taney Roniger. . At the beginning of the year I quoted from Rebecca Solnit’s recent book, Whose Story Is This? We are building something immense together that, though invisible and immaterial, is a structure, one we reside within—or, rather, many overlapping structures…Though there are individual voices and people […]
Above: Microscape Series (River Poem, #2,) by Taney Roniger. Scanned graphite drawings digitally printed with piezography inks . . At the beginning of the year I quoted from Rebecca Solnit’s recent book, Whose Story Is This? We are building something immense together that, though invisible and immaterial, is a structure, one we reside within—or, rather, […]
John Berger described drawing as something done “not only to make something observed visible to others, but also to accompany something invisible to its incalculable destination.” For so many of us who write, compose, paint or draw, Berger’s sentence brings to mind familiar experiences: Starting with something we see that we want to make comprehensible […]
Art’s political power derives…from having no pragmatic application. It can’t fix the world…It stands for itself, it confronts our imagination and our intellect, and so it shapes our capacities as free citizens…If I seek out art in a time of national catastrophe…it’s because I need to be reminded what to live for. Jason Farago, art […]
Note: A few weeks ago I gave a guest lecture for the MFA students at Long Island University Post. At the time I referred to my remarks as a “shop talk:” gathering with fellow tradespeople to share some work wisdom. Art making can resemble a kind of guild after all, one that adheres to the […]
Pell Lucy, the 21 artist collaborative created three months ago, has a new exhibit up on Artsy today: Somewhere Between What is Hidden and What is Seen. The show will be available for viewing through December 3. This exhibit continues exploration into the Pell Lucy credo that form “possesses an intelligence of its own–an intelligence […]
Six years ago I read Charles Eisenstein’s book, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible. I was immediately caught in its spell. I described it to friends as a book that will fundamentally change the way you see the world. I know I am particularly susceptible to books. New ideas are the most […]
“Public opinion doesn’t usually move in staccato bursts,” writes Bill McKibben. “Culture usually shifts gradually—painfully gradually for those of us who want change. But, occasionally, attitudes swing quite suddenly, as if pressure had been silently building up behind a dam until it burst.” Consider for a moment how many build ups are bursting on this […]
This was the final paragraph in my last essay, Art and Mycelia: Artists, like mycelium, have been operating in a world where they are mostly hidden, undervalued and disempowered. Like the concept of the flipped classroom—the movement to change institutionalized pedagogy by switching what happens inside the classroom and out—maybe it is time to flip […]
Perhaps it is my reduced engagement with the flow of life as we knew it that has made it easy to ponder what we should be fighting to preserve, post COVID, and what we would be better off shedding. As the wiser advisors across the world have made clear, there is no returning to the […]