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Wilco, Ruscha, Sondheim,Tom Phillips, Xu Bing & More: 11 Don’t-Miss Arts Events

May 17, 2013 in Events, Images with 0 Comments

Liu Bolin, Hiding in the City No.93 -Supermarket No.2, 2010 (Photo Courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art © Liu Bolin. Click to Enlarge)

Liu Bolin, Hiding in the City No.93 -Supermarket No.2, 2010. Photographs by the Chinese artist are on view in Brattleboro, Vermont, through June 23rd. (Photo Courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art © Liu Bolin. Click to Enlarge)

The summer art scene in New England presents a special challenge. On the one hand there is almost too much going on, particularly with outdoor events. And yet it’s not the season when we can expect the best films or museum shows, which are typically reserved for the fall. But this doesn’t mean there aren’t standout events to be found.

On Wednesday I had a chance to share a few of my own recommendations for summer arts events in New England on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth. (It’s always a blast to work with the show’s host Virginia Prescott and producer Taylor Quimby.)

If you missed the segment, you can listen online here.

Here’s a look at the New England arts events that I’m most looking forward to this summer, along with a few suggestions I didn’t have time to mention on the show…

Michelle in the New Hampshire Public Radio studios (Photo by Taylor Quimby)

Zach in the control booth at New Hampshire Public Radio (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Word of Mouth host Virginia Prescott and Michelle just before their live segment on NHPR (Photo by Taylor Quimby)

Ed Ruscha at the Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts

The Rose had a firestorm of bad press back in 2009 when the former President Jehuda Reinharz announced plans to shut down the Rose and sell the collection in order to shore up Brandeis’ University’s plummeting endowment. The news enraged faculty, alumni and the art world. But the museum has a new president now and the Rose, luckily, has been preserved.

The museum is back with a vengeance showcasing the work of renowned pop artist Ed Ruscha, the first large-scale solo show of the artist’s work in the Boston area.

Ruscha is all about Southern California–cars, billboards, film, and Los Angeles. His best known work may be his artist books 26 Gasoline Stations and Every Building on the Sunset Strip, seminal works that inspired countless imitations.

“Standard Station” (1966), a screenprint from the exhibit “Ed Ruscha: Standard” at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

Ruscha’s 1966 screenprint called Standard Station (shown above) is a pop art masterpiece. The artist is a genius of word play. “Standard” is not only a gas station, but also a mark of quality. Ruscha is also making reference to John D. Rockefeller’s oil company, Standard, which was dissolved by an antitrust ruling in 1911.

The Ed Ruscha show, also called Standard, contains 70 pieces and covers 60 years of the artist’s career. The exhibit ended up at Brandeis thanks to Christopher Bedford, the Rose Museum Director, who used to work at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where the Ruscha show originated.

You’ll need to act quickly though because Ruscha’s Standard is at Brandeis only through June 9th. Visit the Rose Art Museum website for more details.

Liu Bolin, Hiding in the City No. 99 – Three Goddesses, 2011 (Photo Courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art © Liu Bolin)

Contemporary Chinese Art at the Brattleboro Museum and Mass MoCA

Liu Bolin at the Brattleboro Museum of Art in Vermont

This summer New Englanders have not one but two rare opportunities to see the work of two important Chinese artists, both working out of Beijing.

Photographer and performance artist Liu Bolin is sometimes called “The Invisible Man” because he creates photographs of himself blending into various settings around Beijing. Whether he is standing in front of demolished building, a piece of Chinese propaganda, or grocery store shelves lined with soft drinks, Liu (with the help of his assistant) finds creative ways to disguise his body with paint and other materials in order to make himself “invisible.”

Liu Bolin, Hiding in New York No. 7 – Made in China, 2012. (Photo Courtesy Eli Klein Fine Art © Liu Bolin)

In 2005 the Chinese government destroyed Suo Jia Cun, the artist village where Liu’s studio was located. In response Liu started the Hiding in the City series as a way of protesting artists’ troubled relationship with the government and their physical surroundings. Through his elaborate photographs, he embodies the role of the conflicted citizen in a country torn between tradition and “progress,” communal interests and individual freedom.

Liu is an important Chinese artist and it’s a rare event to have his work at the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont through June 23rd.

Also, on Sunday May 26th at 3 p.m. Taliesin Thomas, director of AW Asia, will discuss the emergence and evolution of Chinese contemporary art from the end of the Cultural Revolution to the present day. More information about the talk is available on the Brattleboro Museum website.

The Polaroids of Andrei Tarkovsky : The Mystery of Everyday Life

May 9, 2013 in Images with 4 Comments

Polaroid by Andrei Tarkovsky from the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids from Thames and Hudson.

“Never try to convey your idea to the audience,” said Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, “—it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they’ll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.”

Tarkovsky is best known for such cinematic masterpieces as Solaris, The Mirror, Andrei Rublev, and Stalker. Tarkovksy’s vision was unique as a filmmaker; he favored long takes and leisurely scenes that explored the beauty and mystery of everyday life.

“We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means,” Tarkovsky explained in an 1983 interview with Hervé Guibert in Le Monde.

I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it’s a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.

Andrei Tarkovsky, Stalker (still), 1979.

Andre Tarkovsky on the set of Mirror.

Tarkovsky’s unhurried, profound films explore themes like memory, childhood, and dreams, and are the antithesis of the Hollywood obsession for rapid-cut editing. He was a master of time and rhythm, which he believed was “the dominant, all-powerful factor of the film image.” This is cinema that captures the intimate ebb and flow of everyday life. Here is Tarkovsky explaining artistic approach to filmmaking:

I think people somehow got the idea that everything on screen should be immediately understandable. In my opinion events of our everyday lives are much more mysterious than those we can witness on screen. If we attempted to recall all events, step by step, that took place during just one day of our life and then showed them on screen, the result would be hundred times more mysterious than my film [Stalker]. Audiences got used to simplistic drama. Whenever a moment of realism appears on screen, a moment of truth, it is immediately followed by voices declaring it “confusing.” Many think of Stalker as a science fiction film. But this film is not based on fantasy, it is realism on film. Try to accept its content as a record of one day in lives of three people, try to see it on this level and you’ll find nothing complex, mysterious, or symbolic in it. (Andrei Tarkovsky Talking, 1981)

“Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [of us all],” the director Ingmar Bergman once said, “the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”

Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood (still), 1962.

Andrei and Sven Nykvist-Photo- Lars-Olof Löthwall-Nostalghia

Sven Nykvist and Andrei Tarkovsky (Photo by Lars-Olof Löthwall courtesy of Nostalghia)

Andrei Tarkovsky and Margarita Terekhova on the set of The Mirror.

While I was familiar with Tarkovsky’s films, I had never seen these luscious Polaroids taken by the director until today. (Thanks to Sigrun Hodne who writes the Sub Rosa blog in Norway for alerting me to Tarkovsky’s still images).

These 60 photographs were made by Tarkovsky in Russia and Italy between 1979 and 1984 and have been compiled in the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids. As you can see, Tarkovsky was just as adept with still Polaroids as he was with film. His careful eye is in evidence in these Russian and Italian landscapes with their deep shadows and glimmering sunlight, as well as in the intimate moments Tarkovsky captured with his wife, son, and dog.

Polaroid by Andrei Tarkovsky from the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids from Thames and Hudson.

The Sunday Poem : Joan Murray

September 15, 2012 in Images, Sunday Poem, Words with 0 Comments

Joan Murray (Photo by David Lee)

Today’s Sunday Poem is a special excerpt from poet Joan Murray’s project The Visitor: Poems from the Eastman House. The last time I saw Joan she was working on this series of poems at The MacDowell Colony. I asked Joan to tell us more about this project, which was inspired by photographs in the collection at the George Eastman House, the world’s oldest photography museum…

A few years back I was invited by the director of the Eastman House to collaborate on a project. He was aware of a few poems I’d written in response to works in the collection, and he offered to co-publish a book of my poems with the photographic images that inspired them. However, I was unable to find my way into the project—until last autumn when “voices began speaking” from the photos.

I was drawn to certain images because of the social or political ideas they stirred in me, and to others by the historic events or personal recollections they evoked for me, or by the opportunities they gave me for creative expression. Some poems touched on issues such as capital punishment, segregation, class disparity, gender attitudes, immigration, disability-institutionalization, and events such as the Depression and the Vietnam War.

All the poems are first-person, persona poems. In creating them, I’ve chosen an individual voice and pursued a particular narrative line—often an unexpected one—to make a point and create an effect. While inspired by the works of photographers, these are poems of my own perspective and concerns.

Most of the poems I’ve written so far were inspired by photographers working from 1900 to 1970. To complete my project, I’ll engage with more recent photographers, in particular women and minority photographers.

I kind of see this body of work as a social documentary of the 20th Century in verse.

I’ve selected two poems from Joan’s series to share with you today, along with the original photographs that inspired each piece. I’ll be eager to see the final publication when it comes out.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Gertrude Käserbier, Lollipops, 1910. (Photo courtesy Joan Murray. Click to Enlarge)

The Visitor

(after Lollipops, 1910, by Gertrude Käserbier)

Mother told me I must be kind to the gardener’s daughter.
Mother said some children are “less fortunate
than I.” Mother’s said the gardener’s daughter
had “a difficult life” before she came to live with her father.
The gardener’s daughter wore a dirty dress
the first time she came to play, so I gave her one of mine.
Next time she asked for my favorite shoes—
she’s not so fortunate as I—and her feet are just my size.
The gardener’s daughter told me she once had “another father.”
The gardener’s daughter taught me some of the words
he used to say. When we sit together at the bottom of the stairs,
we whisper them to each other. She calls me
a “silly bitch,” and I call her a “lazy slut”—
since she’s less fortunate than I.

I wonder if Mother knows her other father went to jail.
I wonder if Mother knows her mother got another—
she used to watch him run upstairs to punch
her mother in the nose. Sometimes she punches me
and tries to make me cry. But I don’t mind—she’s
less fortunate than I. And I love to hear the stories that she tells—
about the rats in the alley, and her uncle who went crazy,
and her sister who’s a drunk, and her brother who’s a lady,
and the neighbor boy who pulled her bloomers
down in front of all her friends—but she’s my friend now.
She comes here every day, and Mother always gives us
lollies. I let her take the cherry—the one
we both like best—I take the yellow one that’s sour,
or the green one that’s the worst.

Now she’s crowding me into the banister
because she asked for my brand new bow—
I said I’d give it to her later—I always do—but she wants it now
so she can wear it to the gardener’s house for supper.
I hope she’ll invite me there someday. That way
I can see my teddy bear, and the locket father
gave me for my birthday, and the book I got from Mother
about a girl who has my name—she took my crayons
and crossed it out on every page, then made me
write her name—since she doesn’t know how.
She just asked me for my kitten. I pretended not to hear,
I pray she won’t ask me again. In fact I pray for her
each night since she’s less fortunate than I—I pray
that God will let her go and live with her mother.

Obsession & Empathy: Nan Goldin, Michael Chabon, & A Home for Indigent Bohemians

August 31, 2012 in Events, Images, News, Spaces with 3 Comments

Two weeks ago, artists and art lovers converged on the quiet town of Peterborough, New Hampshire, for a chance to meet some of the most talented contemporary artists working today. Each August the famed MacDowell Colony opens its doors to the public and gives visitors from around the country an opportunity to tour its 32 studios, historic sites, 450 acres of forest, vegetable gardens, streams, orchards, and fields.

When composer Edward MacDowell and his wife Marian established an artist retreat in the New Hampshire woods in 1907, the idea seemed nothing less than ridiculous. Skeptics were quick to pounce, accusing Mrs. MacDowell of creating “a home for indigent bohemians.” But remarkably, the idea worked. The MacDowell Colony, the oldest artist retreat in the United States, has supported over 6000 writers, filmmakers, composers, visual artists, architects, and performers, and spawned hundreds of other programs based on its model. For two to eight weeks at a time, artists are given a private studio, three meals a day (lunch is delivered in the now-legendary picnic baskets), and quiet time to work on a creative project within a community of artistic peers.

What makes MacDowell’s Medal Day unique is the diverse range of artists, art lovers and supporters who are thrown together for a weekend of socializing, open studios, and conversations about the value and meaning of art—art on a personal level, but also a national one. Medal Day is like a family reunion of sorts, with the usual cast of crazy cousins and wise matriarchs mingling with all of those black sheep (and there are plenty of black sheep).

But regardless of your role in the MacDowell family—whether you’re a colony fellow, a local resident, an out-of-town visitor, a volunteer, a staff member, a friend, a supporter, or in my case, a former staff member turned press—there is always a sense of homecoming when you step onto the Colony property. From the moment that MacDowell fellow and board member Michael Chabon steps up to the microphone, you become hyperaware that in this oasis the value of art is not only assumed, but considered as essential as food, water, or air.

Marian MacDowell on the porch of the log cabin she had built for her husband, composer Edward MacDowell. (Photo courtesy The MacDowell Colony)

Medal Day visitors explore Edward MacDowell’s log cabin, which was the first studio on the property. Marian MacDowell would drop a lunch basket at her husband’s studio door each afternoon, which is how the tradition of MacDowell picnic baskets began. (Photo © Joanna Eldredge Morrissey 2012. All rights reserved)

“If I look a bit frazzled–,” Michael Chabon explained, “Ted Kosinski beard, suit worn with sneakers, thousand-yard stare alternating with homicidal glint–let’s just say that I have finally found the answer to one of the questions I am most frequently asked, namely, ‘Mr. Chairman, how do you manage to take care of four children, among them two teenagers, all by yourself, when your wife goes away to Africa for two weeks, without losing your admittedly already somewhat tenuous grip on sanity?’ The answer, I am sorry to report, is: ‘You don’t.’” (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

During this year’s ceremony, I appreciated Executive Director Cheryl Young’s thoughts on “bohemianism” and the financial struggles of working artists:

Luc [Sante] devotes a chapter to bohemia in New York in Low Life noting it was a state of mind more than a place. Therein he quotes a definition of the term by the author Ada Clare: “The Bohemian is by nature, if not by habit, a cosmopolite, with a general sympathy for the fine arts and for all things above and beyond convention. The Bohemian is not, like the creature of society, a victim of rules and customs… Above all others, the Bohemian must not be narrow-minded.”

She goes on to say that Bohemians do not strive to be poor. They are poor because they have eschewed more stable ways of earning a living to pursue life more freely. Bohemians like Walt Whitman and Stephen Crane were good examples of artists who embraced the idea of creative freedom, who eschewed the mainstream and remained on the fringe even after success.

Not all artists are bohemian, but they all-too-often share the common trait of being poor. For Edward MacDowell, who was employed as a professor and struggled to carve out time to make new work, creating a colony was a brilliant scheme to temporarily free artists from their everyday commitments to work and commerce. The Colony is a kind of sanctioned bohemia, one that works particularly well within a capitalist economy where the state only slimly supports artists. MacDowell provides opportunity for research and development for ideas that may or may not register in the commercial marketplace. And residency programs have proven their worth many times over and are today one of our country’s most copied ideas. In the past twenty years there has been an explosion of these sorts of programs internationally.

“Luc [Sante] devotes a chapter to bohemia in New York in Low Life noting it was a state of mind more than a place.” (Photo: Luc Sante at The MacDowell Colony © Joanna Eldredge Morrissey 2012. All rights reserved)

The Colony has been awarding the Edward MacDowell Medal, a prestigious lifetime achievement award, for 53 years. Past recipients include visual artists Robert Frank, Edward Hopper, Louise Bourgeois, and Georgia O’Keeffe; composers Leonard Bernstein and Sonny Rollins; architect I.M. Pei; filmmakers Chuck Jones and Stan Brakhage; interdisciplinary artist Merce Cunningham; writers Robert Frost, William Styron, Eudora Welty, and Joan Didion; and playwrights Thornton Wilder and Edward Albee.

Photographer Nan Goldin was the 2012 medal recipient. Goldin is known for her highly personal photographs of friends and lovers coping with AIDS, physical abuse, and addiction. Luc Sante, chairman of this year’s Medalist selection committee, said,“Nan Goldin’s photographs of her life, her friends, and her family—unflinchingly honest, nakedly emotional, sometimes brutal, but most often tender —redefined the autobiographical use of photography and influenced everyone who has come after her.” Sante, who introduced Goldin during the event, described the artist as a “visual diarist” who tries “to freeze time” by capturing her friends at the beach, at parties, in bed. “The moment is the subject,” Sante said. They are “emphatically not snapshots.”

Nan Goldin, Nan and Brian in Bed, New York City, 1983. (Image © Nan Goldin courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery)

Nan Goldin, Picnic at the Esplanade, Boston, 1973. (Image © Nan Goldin courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery)

Receipts, Email, Bread Tags, Styrofoam : Rachel Perry Welty Transforms Life’s Daily Clutter into Art

July 12, 2012 in Creative Spaces, Events, Images, Process with 7 Comments

Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (receipts), 2011. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (price tags), 2009. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

(Note: All photographs can be viewed in a larger size by clicking on the image)

Every artist must work within certain limitations, and these limitations come in a variety of forms. It could be financial restraints, a lack of free time, formal education, or materials, or something as basic as having limited skills or knowledge. Rachel Perry Welty is a marvelous example of how an artist can use such limitations to her benefit.

Welty is a self-described “late bloomer” and didn’t attend art school until age 36, when she decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps and attend the Museum School in Boston.

“I discovered art around the same time that I became a working mother,” Welty explained to me, “so the only way I knew how to make it was to maneuver it into my day. I gravitated toward materials that were around me and that were easy to pick up and put down, as a defense against the frustration of regular interruptions.”

By making art throughout the course of her day and using everyday objects like receipts, bread tags, aluminum foil, and telephone messages as her medium, Welty found a way to make art in spite of her busy family schedule.

Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (styrofoam), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Many of the material Welty uses, such as twist ties, styrofoam, and bread tags, are preservative in nature, yet in Welty’s work these objects perniciously erase the artist’s identity. Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (bread tags), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

It’s the minutia of middle-class, American life that most fascinates Welty. As a conceptual artist, the message is more important to her than her medium. Working in the tradition of artists like Mary Kelly, Warhol, John Baldessari, and On Kawara, Welty uses photography, drawing, video, social media, installation, collage, sculpture, or whatever method is the best fit for the idea she wants to convey.

To have your only child end up in the hospital with a serious illness is a parent’s worst nightmare. It was this harrowing experience as a mother that was a turning point for Welty as an artist. Altered Receipt: Children’s Hospital Bill for Inpatient Services and Transcription/Medical Record #32-52-52-001 (654 Pages) were painstaking artworks Welty created using actual records in response to her son’s illness. For Altered Receipt she devised a color-coded system that corresponded to each number and letter of the alphabet, and then painted over each of those symbols on the 37-page receipt.

Rachel Perry Welty, Altered Receipt: Children’s Hospital Bill for Inpatient Services (detail), 2001-2002. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

When I arrived at her home in Annisquam, Massachusetts, I discovered an array of colorful gum packets, stickers, aluminum-foil words, plastic strips from food packaging, and other fascinating odds and ends spread around her office and studio. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Package strips hanging on the wall of Rachel Perry Welty’s garage studio (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Working in the tradition of artists like Mary Kelly, Warhol, John Baldessari, and On Kawara, Welty uses photography, drawing, video, social media, installation, collage, sculpture, or whatever method is the best fit for the idea she wants to convey. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Two 18th century portraits of Rachel’s great, great, great, great grandparents, Mary and John Rooker, hang in the family’s dining room. The portraits are a striking contrast to the rest of the decor in Welty’s open-concept, modern house. (Photo by Hornick/Rivlin. Click to Enlarge)

Although her son is now grown, healthy, and no longer at home, Welty continues to make art out of her everyday surroundings. When I arrived at her spacious, modern home in Annisquam, Massachusetts, on a sweltering summer day, I found an array of colorful gum packets, stickers, aluminum-foil words, plastic strips from food packaging, and other fascinating odds and ends spread around her office and studio.

The books on her kitchen shelf were wrapped in aluminum foil, a lasting tribute to her piece Lost in My Life (wrapped books) and above the kitchen counter was a recent piece, Cash for Your Warhol, by artist Geoff Hargadon. Several of Welty’s own artworks hang in the house, including a series of small, framed receipt drawings, whose tiny, intricate markings seemed to recall Welty’s upbringing in Tokyo.

During the dinner party that Welty and her husband, Bruce, hosted for myself and nine other guests, two 18th century portraits of Rachel’s great, great, great, great grandparents, Mary and John Rooker, peered over our shoulders. The portraits are a striking contrast to the rest of the decor in Welty’s open-concept, modern house.

At the end of the meal, Welty asked her guests to sign their names on the white linen tablecloth. The next day Welty sent me a photograph of my own signature, which she was in the process of embroidering with white thread. The artist has been recording the signatures of dinner guests since she moved into her home in 2009; every person who has shared a meal with the artist and her family in Annisquam has signed. Eventually, Welty plans to create a public artwork out of the tablecloth. It is Welty’s nod to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, but also her own original way of using art as a record for her everyday life.

Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (wrapped books), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

The artist has been recording the signatures of dinner guests since she moved into her home in 2009; every person who has shared a meal with the artist and her family in Annisquam has signed. It is Welty’s nod to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, but also her own original way of using art as a record for her everyday life. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

The day after the dinner party, Welty embroidered my own signature onto the tablecloth using white thread. (Photo courtesy Rachel Perry Welty)

Welty’s work has transformed the way I view these banal objects in my own life. I can’t remove a sticker from a piece of fruit now without thinking of her Lost in My Life series or her elegant drawing Sin and Paradise, made from sliced fruit stickers.

As deCordova curator Nick Capasso says in the catalog to Welty’s solo show at the museum, pieces like Lost in My Life show “consumerism run amok.” Capasso rightly points out that many of the material Welty uses, such as twist ties, styrofoam, and bread tags, are preservative in nature, yet in Welty’s work these objects perniciously erase the artist’s identity.

Rachel Perry Welty, Sin and Paradise, 2009. Fruit stickers and archival adhesive on paper. 21.5 x 21.5 inches (Photo by Clements Howcroft, Boston courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York)

Rachel Perry Welty, Sin and Paradise, 2009 (detail). Fruit stickers and archival adhesive on paper. 21.5 x 21.5 inches (Photo by Clements Howcroft, Boston courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York)

Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (fruit stickers), 2010. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (twist ties), 2009. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

The outfits that Welty has used for the Lost in My Life series hang in her garage studio. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Price Tag Dress-Photo by Michelle Aldredge

For the piece Lost in My Life (price tags), Welty had her artwork printed onto fabric and then made a dress from the material. There are also price-tag throw pillows on the couch in her living room (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Welty has not been afraid to embrace technology in her artistic practice. She has an ongoing diary project on Twitter and in 2009 she created the Facebook project Rachel Is, in which she recorded an entire day’s activities in real time on Facebook, updating her status every 60 seconds. For her piece Karaoke Wrong Number, Welty collected all of the messages on her telephone answering machine not intended for her or her family, along with the machine’s time and date stamp. She then lip synched to each recording, creating a persona for each “character.”

“We’re always just a hair’s-breadth away from completely misunderstanding one another,” Welty told WBUR in a radio interview. “Somebody listens to it, pushes a button, deletes it, and it’s gone forever. And we do this in our lives daily with all of the information that comes in.”

The artist’s Deaccession Project began in 2005 when Welty decided to discard, sell, gift, and recycle some of the clutter in her life. As Nick Capasso explains, “this life-based performance is documented each day on a page with a photograph of the object in question, and accompanying brief notations that include number/sequence, date, description, reason for deaccession, and method of disposal or ultimate destination. The pages are then ordered chronologically in scrapbooks.” For Welty’s show 24/7 at the deCordova, the 2,028 pages were scanned, reprinted, and arranged in a chronological grid along a single 78-foot gallery wall.

For her piece Karaoke Wrong Number, Welty collected all of the messages on her telephone answering machine not intended for her or her family. She then lip synched to each recording, creating a persona for each “character.” The piece is currently on view at the ICA in Boston. Rachel Perry Welty, Karaoke Wrong Number, 2005-2009. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Rachel Perry Welty, Deaccession Project, October 5, 2005-ongoing. Installation of 2,028 inkjet prints (each print 9×6.5). Approximately 120 x 936 inches. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Rachel Perry Welty, Deaccession Project (detail), October 5, 2005-ongoing. Installation of 2,028 inkjet prints (each print 9×6.5). Approximately 120 x 936 inches. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Rachel Perry Welty. Installation view of solo show at the deCordova Museum. Seen here are Spam series: what do you really want (Rochelle, February 25, 2009, 9:05:05 AM EST), the Deaccession Project, and photographs from the Lost in my Life series. (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

For her Spam Series, Welty transformed spam email into poetry using a simple household object: aluminum foil. Rachel Perry Welty, Spam Series: what do you really want (Rochelle, February 25, 2009, 9:05:05 AM EST), 2010. One piece of aluminum foil. 8 ½ x 120 x 1 (Image courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery)

Learning to Look : Whistler, Fireworks, and a New Way of Seeing

July 4, 2012 in Events, Images, Process, Words with 9 Comments

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, ca. 1875. Oil on panel, 23.7 × 18.3 in. (Photo courtesy the Detroit Institute of Arts-Click to Enlarge)

I’ll never forget the first time I saw James McNeill Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold. I was still in high school when I stumbled across the painting in an art history book and was immediately stunned. I had never seen night captured so perfectly in an artwork before. Even as a teenager, I sensed that Whistler had caught those falling skyrockets at exactly the right time—not at the point when they were at their most garish and outrageous, but at the poignant moment when the fading sparks were falling into water.

Whistler’s style and composition owe something to Japanese ukiyo-e prints, which were popular with many Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters. Monet was a collector and Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo owned over four hundred Japanese prints. One of my favorite ukiyo-e artists, Utagawa Hiroshige, had a lasting influence on James McNeill Whistler. Hiroshige’s extraordinary series, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, was of particular importance. As the Brooklyn Museum website explains, Whistler was inspired by the Hiroshige prints that he once owned. “As the West entered a new century, Japanese woodblock prints provided an artistic alternative—in the use of color, perspective, and spatial structure—for presenting changes in society.”

It’s interesting to compare this Hiroshige print, Fireworks at Ryogoku (below) with Whistler’s Nocturne in Black and Gold (above). Both images are striking in their own way, but the difference between painting and woodblock printing techniques allowed Whistler to depict the fireworks and night sky with greater delicacy, as well as a deeper, more complex palette.

Utagawa Hiroshige. Fireworks at Ryōgoku (Ryōgoku Hanabi) (8th Month, 1858). From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, c. 1856–58. Woodblock print. (Photo courtesy the Brooklyn Museum)

Whistler’s loose, impressionistic depiction of fireworks at night was not to everyone’s liking when his painting made its public debut. Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket sparked an infamous feud between the artist and the Victorian critic John Ruskin. In 1877 Whistler sued the Ruskin for libel after the critic condemned the painting in his publication Fors Clavigera:

“For Mr. Whistler’s own sake, no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay [founder of the Grosvenor Gallery] ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of willful imposture. I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.”

The trial produced this hilarious exchange between John Ruskin’s lawyer, Attorney General Sir John Holker, and Whistler during cross-examination:

Holker: “What is the subject of Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket?”

Whistler: “It is a night piece and represents the fireworks at Cremorne Gardens.”

Holker: “Not a view of Cremorne?”

Whistler: “If it were A View of Cremorne it would certainly bring about nothing but disappointment on the part of the beholders. It is an artistic arrangement. That is why I call it a nocturne.…”

Holker: “Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?”

Whistler: “Oh, I ‘knock one off’ possibly in a couple of days – one day to do the work and another to finish it…”

Holker: “The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?”

Whistler: “No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.”

James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge, c. 1872–1875. Oil on canvas, 26 7/8 in × 20 1/8 in. (Photo courtesy of the Tate Britain, London. Click to Enlarge)

Hiroshige’s influence on Whistler can also be seen in his breathtaking piece Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge. Here again, Whistler uses the golden sizzle of fireworks over the river Thames to wonderful effect. The compositional similarities between Whistler’s painting and Hiroshige’s print, Kyobashi Bridge, are unmistakable.

Whistler and Hiroshige taught me a new way of seeing. From both of these artists, I learned that less is often more. The best art, regardless of its medium, captures the essence of a thing, and leaves out all of the right parts. This idea was pushed to its limits by the minimalist artists of the 20th century. The gap between Whistler and Ellsworth Kelly or Hiroshige and Agnes Martin is not as great as it may appear at first glance.

Utagawa Hiroshige, Bamboo Yards, Kyōbashi Bridge (12th Month, 1857). From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, ca. 1856–58. Woodblock print. (Photo courtesy the Brooklyn Museum. Click to Enlarge).

I think of these artworks by Whistler and Hiroshige each year when the Fourth of July holiday rolls around.

As an ardent lover of fireworks, New Hampshire is an ideal place to live. Each town has its own fireworks display (some shows are larger and better than others, but regardless, the crowds are never a problem). The local villages are kind enough to stagger their events on different nights so there are no scheduling conflicts. Before the show, there is typically an ice cream social, music, swimming, and other community activities. As locals gather around the lakes with their glow necklaces and bottles of bug spray, so do the mosquitoes, followed immediately by the bats.

In the past four days, I’ve seen two local fireworks shows—one over Dublin Lake by Mt. Monadnock and the other over Norway Pond in my old neighborhood in Hancock. In the case of Dublin Lake, I decided to make the mile-long journey on my bicycle. The hills were steep and the bugs intense, but the moon was bright—bright enough to throw shadows onto the empty road.

During my night ride, I spotted a fox, two porcupines, an owl, and a deer. Other mysterious creatures lurked in the bushes. I never saw them, but I heard their rustling. The number of dramas playing out in nature each night while we lie in our beds is staggering. (I’m reminded of this fact each time I hear the coyotes howling outside my open bedroom window.)

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

At Dublin Lake, I perched myself on a rock and waited. In a brilliant stroke of Yankee ingenuity, the woman behind me swatted bugs away with a tree branch. I buttoned up my shirt and rolled down my pants to protect myself from the swarms. Just as the fireworks began, a bat skimmed over the top of my head.

I’ve never heard a boom so loud before. Each explosion ricocheted off the side of Mt. Monadnock and bounced over the water. I can only imagine what the foxes, porcupines, and deer were thinking. The excited children, on the other hand, made their thoughts very clear: Those are my favorite. I like the purple ones! I like the one that looks like a splash in the water (little girl)! I like the giant red ones that look like a bomb going off (little boy)! Today I learned that there are more exacting names for these firework effects: peony, chrysanthemum, dahlia, ground bloom flower (there are lots of flower names). Also, willow, palm, crossette, spider, horsetail, time rain, fish.

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

Whenever possible, I prefer to be in nature without the distraction of electronic devices. This means no camera. No cell phone. No i-Pod. When it comes to fireworks, though, I make a rare exception.

Each year I photograph the local fireworks, and each year the photographs are a surprise, even to me. While these images aren’t “art” in the strictest sense, I do think they capture artful moments. Like Whistler, I’m particularly fond of the less dramatic scenes, the golden criss-crossing tails, the juxtaposition of colors, the unusual patterns captured by the camera, though not always visible to the naked eye.

Sometimes the point of taking a picture is the end result. We want a record of where we’ve been or who we’ve seen. Or maybe we are setting out to create art or capture something larger than ourselves. But often I find that the actual process of taking a picture is just as important. A camera can focus our attention and allow us to see things we might have missed otherwise. It sharpens our senses and also opens us to the happy accidents that often occur when we click the shutter.

“I sit for a long time and watch one thing,” says the writer Barry Lopez. “If you don’t do that homework, you don’t make yourself vulnerable enough to a place, and it never releases itself into you.”

Learning to look is perhaps the most under-appreciated skill of our generation. Do I love the fireworks for themselves? Of course. But I also love the fact that for a few days each year, individuals gather together in one place, expose themselves to the elements, and for a short time, stare at the sky, not their computer screen or cell phone.

We see what we expect to see. But if we’re still and patient, if we take time to turn off our devices and get out into the real world, we leave room for so many more possibilities.

Photo by Michelle Aldredge (Click to Enlarge)

The Art of Taking Risks : 13 Years, 3500 Artists, 7 Memorable Lessons

May 6, 2012 in Found, Images, News, Process with 16 Comments

Image from the vernacular photography collection of Mark Glovsky

When I was a girl, I was fearless. I was always falling out of trees, off of speeding bicycles, into muddy creeks. Once, I was bitten by an angry goose. I was knocked on the head accidentally with a baseball. A rock. And a basketball. On one hot summer evening, the rope of the tire swing broke and sent me and my best friend, Michael, hurling through the yard like a hockey puck. And then there was the morning I tumbled into my neighbor’s cactus garden. (Who knew that cacti spines came in so many size and color variations? Ouch.)

But somewhere on the way to adulthood, the youthful spirit of risk took its leave. Like so many other “responsible” adults, I succumbed to the tyranny of the regular paycheck. Although I never lived extravagantly, I traded my time for money, and money for things. Once on that spinning wheel, it’s hard to get off. Often we forget that it’s even possible to stop, reevaluate, and make radical changes to our lives. It feels too scary. Too hard and overwhelming.

This past year has forced me to stop and reconsider my options. Ten months ago, when I launched Gwarlingo, I never could have anticipated how quickly the site would grow and how enthusiastically it would be received. Some incredible opportunities have come my way as a result–I’ve made new friends, had fabulous conversations with readers (in person and online), traveled, flexed my writing, tech, and photography skills, been on the radio, been hired for new, challenging projects, and more. And every minute has been pure pleasure for me. For the first time in ages, I have no idea what surprises the day will bring when I get out of bed, and that excites me.

Image from the vernacular photography collection of Mark Glovsky

After thirteen remarkable years working at The MacDowell Colony, I’ve decided it’s time to take the leap into full-time self employment. The decision wasn’t easy, but I know it’s the right thing to do. Letting go of my 9-5 job (with a regular paycheck and benefits) will allow me to expand Gwarlingo and tackle some new creative projects. Is it a risk? Of course. But it’s a risk that takes me back to those free-wheeling, tree-climbing days.

While I’ll miss all of my friends at the Colony terribly, I can still be part of a creative community through Gwarlingo and through some new collaborative projects that are on the horizon.

Over 3500 artists have passed through the doors of MacDowell during my tenure there. That’s a lot of creative energy in one place. In the past few days a number of people have asked me about the experience of working at the Colony for over a decade. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned in my thirteen years at the nation’s oldest artist retreat…

If you are open, receptive, and generous with others, the majority of people will be open, receptive, and generous in return.

Reserve judgment. Forget rumors. Listen and be patient. Most people will surprise you.

The most successful artists don’t have some mysterious gift that allows them to excel in their field. They simply work hard, work consistently, take creative risks, and don’t worry about what other people think. This is the real formula for creative success.

It is artists who have the best bird’s eye view of our culture today–they can tell us where we’ve been and where we’re going. They have the special ability to imagine alternatives to the present.

Artists can also view the world from a micro level. They can help us appreciate the unseen.

Solitude is an art. Unplugging and learning to be alone with yourself is essential if you want to do your best creative work. Technology is a tool. We should control it, not the other way around. Turn off your phone, Twitter, email, etc. Do it. The withdrawal symptoms will subside, eventually.

Being an artist is challenging in our society. It’s hard mentally, physically, and financially. It takes a village–a community of friends, fellow artists, and supporters who understand why you do the work you do and believe that it’s valuable. If you have the means, support artists and organizations, like MacDowell, who are helping artists realize their full potential. And if you’re an artist, don’t forget to leave your apartment or studio every now and then. Find a residency program, go to a reading, concert, or opening, or have fun with friends. Play and connection are just as important as hard work.

These are just a few of the lessons I’ll take with me when I go.

Image from the vernacular photography collection of Mark Glovsky

I have a lot of exciting ideas for growing Gwarlingo. I’m looking forward to organizing live events, providing more resources for artists on the site, and digging into much-discussed topics like money, fear, and technology and how these dovetail with the creative life.

And then there is my own creative work that’s been languishing–I have a novel to sell, stories to finish, and photographs to print.

Of course, I will also need to piece together the funding to make all of this happen. Traffic on the site continues to grow. Last month I had over 25,000 unique visitors to Gwarlingo. I expect this number to climb as I have more time to devote to the project. This opens up some new opportunities for sponsorships, which I’ll be exploring.

I’ll also be available for freelance and consulting projects. I have a large project with a nonprofit that will take part of the year, but I also look forward to working with artists who need help with grant writing, project proposals, social media, and artist statements. I have a few artists penciled into my calendar already.

Image from the vernacular photography collection of Mark Glovsky

My last day at The MacDowell Colony will be April 27th. Life is going to be very full until then, so please forgive me if I’m not able to post as regularly in the coming weeks. You will have more of my time and attention very soon.

Thanks to all of the staff, friends, and artists who have made my job at the Colony so memorable through the years. I also want to thank the friends, old and new, who have participated in the evolution of Gwarlingo.

We’re just getting started.

Image from the vernacular photography collection of Mark Glovsky

Don’t miss the next Gwarlingo feature. Click here to subscribe to Gwarlingo. You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

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A special thank you to Mark Glovsky for sharing these beautiful images from his found photography collection. Thanks Mark!

New England Artists Finally Get Their Due at the deCordova’s 2012 Biennial

March 14, 2012 in Events, Images with 2 Comments

Steve Lambert, "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False," 2011. Aluminum and electronics. 9 x 20 x 7 feet. Electronics by Alexander Reben (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

A few weeks ago I attended the opening for the 2012 deCordova Biennial, which is on view in Lincoln, Massachusetts, through April 22nd. This year curators Dina Deitsch and Abigail Ross Goodman have created a regional Biennial that features the work of 23 New England artists.

As Greg Cook points out in his recent review, the one billion dollars that have been invested in expanding and endowing Boston’s museums over the past decade is finally paying off in a newly vigorous Boston contemporary art scene.

And yet, contemporary New England artists aren’t benefiting from this expanded exhibition space as much as one might expect. As an example, Cook cites the new contemporary wing at the Museum of Fine Arts, which “features big shots upstairs,” with locals “segregated out in a downstairs hall alongside art by Boston youth.” The deCordova Museum’s 2012 Biennial is a welcome remedy to this situation.

In an interview with WBUR, the two curators explain how they pored over portfolios, road-tripped across six states, and visited about 100 studios in order to choose the work featured in the show. As is typical of these types of group shows, both the press and the museum itself have been eager to prescribe common themes for the work.

A lot has been made about the 2012 Biennial being reflective of the larger anxiety currently being experienced in our culture. While I have no doubt that many people are feeling anxious right now, particularly artists struggling to make a living in a bad economy, forcing artists’ work into pre-determined categories only ends up feeling contrived in the end. There are some interesting parallels that can be made between specific art works, but let’s put the grand pronouncements aside for now, and allow these affinities to emerge organically from the work itself…

DeCordova curator Dina Deitsch and guest curator Abigail Ross Goodman pored over portfolios, road-tripped across six states, and visited about 100 studios in order to choose the work featured in the 2012 Biennial. (Courtesy photo via WBUR)

An interesting irony about Lambert's "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False" is that he used Kickstarter to raise the money he needed to build the project. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False" is a fun, provocative way to engage visitors outside of the museum walls. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

Steve Lambert's sign will travel to various towns around Boston and the rest of the country. As an interactive project, the work asks viewers to cast a simple vote—a common act in the era of the Facebook “like” button. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

One of the highlights in the show is also the first piece visitors see. While darkness prevented me from enjoying the museum’s outdoor sculpture park on the night of the opening, Steve Lambert‘s Capitalism Works For Me! True/False was a fun, provocative way to engage visitors outside of the museum walls.

Although I’ve never met Lambert, I’ve been following his work for some time now, and always find his projects intriguing. Lambert is an artist interested in dialogue, particularly in the public sphere. He co-organizes workshops for artists and activists at the Center for Artistic Activism, gives lectures and performances, and examines advertising’s effect in public space with the Anti-Advertising Agency (an art group founded by the artist). In 2008, he led a collaboration with hundreds of volunteers circulating thousands of fake New York Times Special Edition newspapers that announced the end of the war in Iraq.

Sign making is also an integral part of Lambert’s art practice. An interesting irony about this particular project is that Lambert used Kickstarter to raise the money he needed to build Capitalism Works For Me! True/False. Lambert is in sync with the times and came up with the idea for his project before the Occupy movement ignited. The sign will travel to various towns around Boston and the rest of the country. As an interactive project, the work asks viewers to cast a simple vote—a common act in the era of the Facebook “like” button.

“I want my art to be relevant to those outside the gallery – say, at the nearest bus stop – to reach them in ways that are engaging and fun,” the artist explains on his website. “I intend what I do to be funny, but at the core of each piece there is also a solemn critique. It’s important to be able to laugh while actively questioning the various power structures at work in our daily lives.”

Capitalism Works For Me! True/False works on all of these fronts, and best of all it is provocative without being preachy. To my mind, Lambert’s art is the perfect combination of humor and gravitas. With Capitalism Works For Me! True/False Lambert harnesses the power of a simple question to make us think about a economic reality we typically take for granted in our daily lives.

Biennial artists Steve Lambert and Ven Voisey with Gavin Kroeber and Rebecca Uchill (Photo by Melissa Ostrow of Mel O Photo courtesy the deCordova)

Mary Lum, "Index 2." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 10" x 13" (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

An installation shot of Mary Lum's collages and photographs at the deCordova (Photo by Clements Photography & Design, Boston, Massachusetts, courtesy dailyserving.com)

The colorful, surreal collages of Mary Lum were another standout in the 2012 Biennial. For a start, Lum’s works are beautifully presented in tightly grouped white frames lining a long hallway. Placing Lum’s works in a corridor works well, for there is a real sense of movement in these pieces, which is only heightened by their placement.

I was not surprised to learn that Lum considers herself in the role of a latter-day flâneuse (a French term meaning stroller coined by Charles Baudelaire). Lum’s work owes something not only to Baudelaire, but also to Walter Benjamin’s unfinished Arcades Project, and to the concept of psychogeography as practiced by 1950s and 60s writers and artists of the Situationists International. At the root of psychogeography is the idea that we all experience our environments through intuition rather than cognitive organization.

Lum strolls around the city photographing the urban environment—buildings, railings, stairwells, and other architectural details. She then deconstructs these photos and collages them with acrylic paint, creating dynamic, unique spaces for viewers to occupy and explore. Lum’s images left me feeling both exhilarated and disoriented, as though I were in a dream where the environment was familiar, yet not quite right. What is fact and what is fiction? There’s no easy answer to this question when viewing a Mary Lum collage, and it’s this uncertainty that creates a fascinating tension.

Mary Lum, "Incident 1073." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 11" x 9". (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

Artist Mary Lum (on right) with guests Monique Johannet and Harwood Egan (Photo by Melissa Ostrow of Mel O Photo courtesy the deCordova)

Mary Lum, "Fifth Glance." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 12" x 9". (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

Mary Lum, "Seventh Glance." Acrylic and photo collage on paper. 12" x 9". (Photo courtesy Mary Lum)

I also found the work of Chris Taylor absorbing. Although Taylor is a glassblower, he is as much a conceptual artist as a craftsman. For Taylor, process is often more important than product. The artist was born in Tehran, Iran, and now teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Taylor’s previous projects include SCHOTT Return (2003-10), in which Taylor fabricated a replica glass lab beaker with slight imperfections, which he then shipped to the SCHOT manufacturer as a flawed object for return. After receiving a new ‘perfect’ beaker from the factory, Taylor exhibited the two works side-by-side, challenging the viewer to reconsider what was “real.” For another project, Taylor learned how to reproduce a 16th century Venetian goblet (a technique that had been lost for over 500 years), and then planted his reproduction next to the original in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Taylor continues to play with the idea of authenticity in the Biennial. I love his collection of hand-blown glass cups made to look like cheap, throw-away styrofoam. Taylor’s video, Small Craft Advisory (2009), is also on view at the deCordova. For this danger-filled performance, Taylor blew glass in hot furnace while sitting in a seven-foot dinghy floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

"I love Chris Taylor's collection of handblown glass cups made to look like cheap, throw-away styrofoam." Chris Taylor, Untitled, 2004–2010, glass, dimensions variable (Photo courtesy Chris Taylor and the deCordova)

I circled Antoniadis & Stone's sculptures a number of times before I realized that what appeared to be aged metal, stone, and concrete was actually plaster, particle board, and paint. (Photo by Suzanne Kreiter for The Boston Globe via boston.com)

Anna Von Mertens, "Jupiter Rising, January 7, 1610, Padua, Italy," 2008. Hand-stitched, hand-dyed cotton, 54" x 100" (Photo courtesy Anna Von Mertens)

For "Jupiter Rising, January 7, 1610, Padua, Italy" Anna Von Mertens turned to the journals of Galileo for inspiration, mapping the night sky on the day that Galileo discovered Jupiter’s moons. (Photo by Melissa Ostrow of Mel O Photo courtesy the deCordova)

Illusion is also the theme of Alexi Antoniadis and Nico Stone’s large-scale sculptures. While not initially attracted to these industrial, slightly menacing works, something compelled me to continue looking. I circled Antoniadis & Stone‘s sculptures a number of times before I realized that what appeared to be aged metal, stone, and concrete was actually plaster, particle board, and paint. They are impressive fakes and once the visual joke is revealed the temptation to touch these pieces is overwhelming (though for the record, I didn’t). Luckily, the museum’s Process Room provides materials for viewers like myself who want a hands-on experience with the artists’ materials.
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The Spectacular Snow Drawings of Simon Beck

February 29, 2012 in Design, Images with 6 Comments

Winter has finally arrived in New Hampshire. We’re expecting about a foot of snow here in the Monadnock region by the time the storm ends Thursday evening. There hasn’t been a single opportunity for snowshoeing this year, which I’ve missed.

Snowshoeing has been on my mind…This week I noticed these snow photographs popping up again and again on Facebook, Inhabitat, and other sites. Curious about their original source, I did a little digging and discovered the official Facebook page of Simon Beck, an artist who creates these incredible designs by walking in the snow with snowshoes.

The Oxford-educated, self-employed map maker creates these designs on the frozen lakes in the valley of Savoie, France, just outside of the ski slopes at Les Arcs resort. An average work is the size of three soccer fields and takes about two days to complete.

The biggest challenge for Beck (besides getting overly tired) is finding a way to reduce the visibility of his own tracks when he begins and finishes a piece. Sometimes, he might work all day only to have his design covered by fresh snow overnight. At other times, he finishes a design right at sunset and doesn’t have enough light remaining to photograph his work properly. But the inability to predict the outcome is part of the fun.

Snow Artist Simon Beck (Photo courtesy Now That's Nifty)

I love the simplicity of Beck’s method, and the impermanence of each piece. Personally, I’m partial to Beck’s simpler designs that rely more on line and texture for their effect. A number of the designs are reminiscent of crop circles and other patterns from ancient art.

All of the photographs I’ve seen flying around the web are from Beck’s official Facebook page, which is where he posts his latest work for the public to peruse. There are also a large number of beautiful pieces Beck made between 2009 and 2011 in this photo album on the artist’s personal page. You WON’T find these images anywhere else, and many of my favorite images can be found there.

Simon Beck's Snow Art (Photo courtesy Inhabitat)

The remnants of one of Beck's designs can still be see on the melting surface of Lac des Combes. A few hours after this photo was taken, the ice completely disappeared. (Photo courtesy Inhabitat)

If you enjoyed Beck’s snow art, please share this post with others.

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Gwarlingo highlights some of the most inventive work being made today in visual art, music, writing, film, performance, design, and more. It's also a place where creative people can connect, explore, and share ideas. Gwarlingo has been featured on Andrew Sullivan's The Dish, NHPR, and more. And the name? Gwarlingo is a Welsh word for the rushing sound a grandfather clock makes before it strikes.

“Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.”

― Theodore Roethke

About Michelle

My name is Michelle Aldredge. I’m a writer, photographer, and the creator of Gwarlingo. At Gwarlingo, I share in-depth conversations with artists, as well as some of my own exciting finds in contemporary art. I've done radio appearances on NHPR and consulted on arts projects big and small. From 1999-2012 I worked at The MacDowell Colony, the nation's oldest artist retreat, but I've also done time at an arts magazine, a library, an art museum, and a raptor rehabilitation center. You can read more about me and my work here. Thanks for visiting. Come back. Come often.

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Little People in the City: While the public goes mad for Banksy, a more polished street artist named Slinkachu has been producing brilliant, evocative artwork that has largely escaped the attention of an American audience. Slinkachu is everything Banksy is not–-subtle, poignant, empathic, contemplative. Gwarlingo readers loved Slinkachu's photographs. Check out 33 of his images here.

The Art of Focus - 5 Ways to Free Yourself from Digital Dependency: Our day begins with good intentions. We resolve that today will be different from yesterday, because today, we we’ll stay on task. But then we turn on our computers and smart-phones, and before we know it, we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. How do we make the most of technology without frittering our lives away? How do we create time and space for deep thinking, creation, and real connection within the chaos of digital life?

13 Years, 3500 Artists, 7 Memorable Lessons: After thirteen remarkable years of working at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, I decided to leave the Colony in May of 2012. Letting go of a 9-5 job (with a regular paycheck and benefits) in order to expand an arts website is a risky thing to do, but I've loved every minute of the Gwarlingo adventure. Did I learn something from working with over 3500 artists in those 13 years? Hell yeah. Read more here.

52 Pieces by British Street Artist Banksy: Banksy is a walking, breathing oxymoron. Depending on who you ask, he is either a genius or an overhyped vandal, a talented documentary filmmaker or a brilliant faker. He is both a lefty and a critic of liberal piety. He flips off the art world establishment, and yet courts the very art world he claims to detest. He is a street artist who sells his work for high sums in galleries and auction houses, and “an anarchist environmentalist who travels by chauffeured S.U.V. Is Banksy an arch prankster or an art genius? Read more here. (Above: Cardinal Sin by Banksy)

How Creativity Works: Why do creative epiphanies happen? Are there specific things we can do to encourage innovation in our personal lives and in the workplace? What can Bob Dylan, Julia Child, and Picasso teach us about the creative process? Read more about Jonah Lehrer's book Imagine: How Creativity Works here.

The Illusionist: At first glance, the work of Swiss artist Felice Varini looks like interesting, abstract art superimposed on an architectural space. But these are actually brilliantly composed installations--real paintings in real spaces that hover eerily in front of it. See more of Varini's work here.

The Spectacular Snow Drawings of Simon Beck: Beck creates these incredible designs by simply walking in the snow. These massive installations take two days to complete. See more photos here.

Creativity is the Power to Act: Ai Weiwei's interviews and blog posts are a thought-provoking read. “Creativity is the power to act," Ai says. "It’s the power “to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential.” Ai is an architect, sculptor, curator, poet, critic, publisher, and photographer--an artist who created installations out of 1,200 bicycles and 100 million handmade porcelain sunflower seeds. Read more about Ai's writing, political activism, and art work here.

Not Your Average Flashmob: Last month the Copenhagen Philharmonic pulled off an audacious stunt—performing Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt on a crowded, moving metro train for unsuspecting passengers. Readers loved this video. I dare you to watch it without smiling.

How to Feel Miserable as an Artist: This marvelous list, which is relevant to artists of all disciplines, was created by illustrator Keri Smith and is part of The Artist’s Survival Kit, which Keri wrote and designed. I like Keri’s list because it emphasizes the ways in which we tend to stay in our safe zones as artists. Read the full list here.

Hugo Author Brian Selznick Shares 20 Favorite Books: Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of Brian Selznick's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret has won over critics and fans alike. In this popular Gwarlingo exclusive, Selznick shares his own favorite books for children. There are some wonderful discoveries on the list for readers of all ages. View all 20 titles and see illustrations from Selznick's newest book, Wonderstruck here.

95 Rare Color Photographs: The second most popular post in Gwarlingo's short history has been this feature on the rare color photographs taken by FSA photographers like Jack Delano, Russell Lee, and Marion Post Wolcott. The overwhelming response to this piece leads me to believe that I'm not the only one who finds these early Kodachrome photos from the 30s and 40s a fascinating discovery.

Grace Paley on Writing: "If you want to write, keep a low overhead...The best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don’t live with a lover or roommate who doesn’t respect your work. Don’t lie, buy time, borrow to buy time. Write what will stop your breath if you don’t write." Read more here.

On Money, Fear, & the Artist: Being an artist is so hard because we’re operating in a parallel universe from the larger culture–one that values imagination, creativity, and ideas more than money or status. Read more about art and fear and explore Mark Wagner's amazing currency collages here.

Transforming the Familiar: Explore the luminous landscapes of photographer Barry Underwood.

Tour the Tate Modern: The Tate Modern in London, a former power plant, is the most visited modern art gallery in the world. I share some of the highlights from my own visit in this special tour.

The Journey to Freedom: Peter Wyer's Numinous City is inspired by the extraordinary true story of Ngawang Sangdrol, a Tibetan nun, imprisoned in Lhasa, Tibet at age 14. Sangdrol and other nuns managed to record songs on a smuggled cassette player while in prison, the fame of which ultimately led to her release. I spoke to Sangdrol and Wyer (pictured above) at a sneak preview of the opera at the Rubin Museum in New York City. Read more about this incredible story here.

Creative Spaces

Visit Kim Uchiyama's Tribeca Studio: "I think it's important for us to understand that we live in a society that doesn't value mystery. We want everything to be absolutely clear and unambiguous because this makes us feel more comfortable. We're often afraid of what is foreign or unfamiliar."

Red Heart the Ticker: A legendary songcatcher inspires two musicians on a Vermont farm. Listen to new music from Red Heart the Ticker and take a tour of their farm and studios in this special expanded edition of Gwarlingo's Creative Spaces series.

The Debut of Gwarlingo's Creative Spaces Series: Read an in-depth interview with MacArthur fellow Anna Schuleit and take a tour of her studio.

Explore the Archives

Beauty and the Beast (No. Not That One. The Other One): Why did it take me so long to finally see Jean Cocteau's masterpiece? Discover why this film classic is worth revisiting.

What Is Love? Joan Wickersham's critically acclaimed collection The News from Spain has some surprising answers. Click here to read my full review.

A Line Made By Flooding: In 2007 Eve Mosher created High Water Line, a public art project in Manhattan and Brooklyn that brought the topic of climate change directly to the city’s residents. “I never wanted this to be a reality,” Mosher said the week Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of New York and New Jersey. Read more here.

Before and After Dinner: Most people know André Gregory through his critically acclaimed film My Dinner with André, but Cindy Kleine's new documentary reveals so much more about the respected theatre director and raconteur. Read my full review of the film here.

A Good Man is Hard to Find: Click here to explore the artwork and propaganda posters from past presidential elections.

Ambient Cowboy by Ivy Baldwin Dance: It is fitting that a dance piece inspired by Philip Johnson’s famous Glass House should have a set design made of light. And not just any light—but a ribbon of light that glides over wall, floor, and dancers, then suddenly vanishes. Read my full review of Ivy Baldwin's Ambient Cowboy at New York Live Arts here.

Film & Fatherhood: How do you learn to be a father, particularly when there are no fathers around to be an example? This is the question at the heart of Samein Priester’s documentary 1st&4ever. The dilemma of fatherhood has taken on new significance for Samein since the tragic loss of his partner, artist Denyse Thomasos. Read more and watch the film in its entirety here.

The Utopia Minus Project: Gwarlingo readers loved Susan Briante's gritty, visceral poems about America's highways, suburbs, and abandoned urban landscapes paired with Margaret Lanzetta's rich, patterned canvases (many also inspired by American highways). See Briante's and Lanzetta's exclusive collaboration only on Gwarlingo.

Transforming New York City's Water Towers: Artists like Tom Fruin and Rachel Whiteread are creating memorable public sculptures out of the humble New York City water tower. In the Spring of 2013, 300 rooftop tanks will be transformed into works of art by established and emerging figures in art, music, science as well as public school students. Read more about water-tower art here.

Lessons from the Writing Life: Poet Matthew Zapruder and fiction writer Amy Hempel read and discuss new work at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute in Amherst, Massachusetts.Read more here.

My Review of Christian Marclay's The Clock: The Clock is artist Christian Marclay’s magnum opus, a mesmerizing 24-hour montage of thousands of time-related movie clips that have been masterfully edited and synchronized to show the actual time. Does it live up to the hype? Find out here.

Tales of Captivity and Freedom: In I Am an Executioner, Rajesh Parameswaran introduces us to a cast of heroes—and antiheroes: from the lovesick tiger who narrates the unforgettable opener, to the ex-CompUSA employee who masquerades as a doctor; from a railroad manager in a turn-of-the-century Indian village, to an elephant writing her autobiography; from a woman whose Thanksgiving preparations put her husband to eternal rest, to the newlywed executioner of the title, these characters inhabit a marvelous region between desire and death, playfulness and violence. Read an interview with Rajesh Parameswaran here.

Lewis Hyde on Art and Ownership: Lawsuits over image appropriation, music remixes, file sharing, and copyright infringement are on the rise and emerging as the central debate of the digital era. The Grey Album, a 2004 mash-up by Danger Mouse, is a prime example of the type of copyright dispute Lewis Hyde discusses in his most recent book, Common as Air. You can read a full interview with Hyde here.

Whistler, Fireworks, and a New Way of Seeing: James McNeill Whistler’s loose, impressionistic depiction of fireworks at night was not to everyone’s liking when the painting made its public debut in 1877. Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket sparked an infamous feud between the artist and the Victorian critic John Ruskin. During the libel trial that followed, Ruskin's lawyer asked Whistler, "The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?" The artist replied, “No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.” Read more here.

Peter Hutton’s films of rivers, oceans, cargo ships, and landscapes are everything commercial movies are not—subtle, completely silent, thoughtful, and devoid of narrative. "Cinema tends to be this additive thing, it gets more complicated technologically," says Hutton. "I wanted to do it alone, keep it personal and private...It’s not about the pyrotechnics, it’s about something else---being inventive with limitations." Read an interview with Hutton and watch a video of his recent exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum here.

The Lines Between the Arts are Insignificant: Hiroshi Teshigahara's Antonio Gaudi is like no other film I can think of. This 72-minute visual poem on the Spanish Art-Nouveau architect avoids conventional narrative and instead, lets Gaudi’s buildings do the talking. "Gaudi worked beyond the borders of various arts,” Teshigahara once said, “and made me feel that the world in which I was living still left a great many possibilities.” Read more about Gaudi and Teshigahara here.

Re-Branding the Barnes: Has a 25-Billion-Dollar Art Collection Been Disneyfied? The controversial new Barnes Museum in Philadelphia has finally opened its doors to much acclaim and protest. Read the full story of how a spiteful, visionary genius created the greatest collection of Post-Impressionist art in the world, as well as a bureaucratic nightmare for his predecessors. My own review of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's new building is also included here.

Doris Salcedo on the Perspective of the Defeated: This photograph of 1,550 wooden chairs piled between two buildings in Istanbul stopped me in my virtual tracks when I first saw it. Born in Colombia, Salcedo’s installations are meditations on the silenced lives of the marginalized--the gap between the powerful and the powerless. Read more about Salcedo's installations here.

The DIY Punk Philosophy of Jem Cohen: Artist Jem Cohen uses film as a solo medium to create cinematic collages and haunting meditations on memory and place. Cohen’s films are works of art–soulful, provocative, anti-commercial, mysterious, unconventional, and beautifully imperfect. The filmmaker has worked with an array of musicians through the years–Patti Smith, R.E.M., The Ex, Gil Shaham, Elliott Smith, Cat Power, and the late Vic Chesnutt. Read more about Jem's work here.

Roger King Explores Love & Fatigue in America: “What does it mean to live in between?” writes novelist Andrea Barrett of Roger King’s latest book. “Not only between geographical locations, but between health and illness, commitment and freedom, love and loss?” In this in-depth interview with British novelist Roger King, we discuss writing, King's fight with chronic fatigue syndrome, his aid work in Africa and Asia, American healthcare, and more.

Artist Matthew Northridge: Matthew Northridge uses paper like no other artist I know. Matt gave me a tour of his solo show at Kansas Gallery during a recent visit to New York City. Explore more of his work here.

The Most Memorable Experiences in the Arts: I asked an array of artists to tell me about their most memorable experiences in the arts during 2011. Singer Rosanne Cash (pictured above), Moosewood cookbook author Mollie Katzen, journalists William Powers and Jeff Sharlet, British composer Tarik O'Regan and others share their surprising picks here.

Exhuming the Forgotten: Filmmaker Errol Morris said that Bill Morrison's Decasia might be ”the greatest movie ever made.” Assembled entirely from decaying, highly flammable, early nitrate footage, this masterpiece belongs in the tradition of Stan Brakhage’s films and Michael Lessy’s memorable book Wisconsin Death Trip; it is simultaneously poetic, haunting, and compelling. The entire piece is a meditation on ruin and the temporal nature not only of film, but of life itself. Learn more about Decasia and Bill Morrison's other films here.

New England Artists Finally Get Their Due: Read my review of the de Cordoova Biennial, featuring work by Mary Lum, Anna Von Mertens, Chris Taylor, Ann Pibal, Steve Lambert (shown above), Cullen Bryant Washington, Jr., and More.

The World of E.B. White: In 1951 the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals accused writer E.B. White of not paying his dog tax and “harboring” an unlicensed dog. White wrote this hilarious letter in response to the ASPCA. Read the letter and an overview of White's work here.

A Retreat in the Sky: Explore the art, architecture, gardens, and history of New York's High Line Park, built on an old, elevated railway. (Above photo © Joel Sternfeld courtesy Friends of the High Line)

Composer Steve Reich with reel to reel tape recorders

The Sound of Four Hands Clapping: In 1971 composer Steve Reich embarked on a five-week trip to study music and drumming in Ghana. Shortly after his return, he wrote “Clapping Music.” In this 1972 video Reich performs this classic piece with percussionist Russell Hartenberger.

The Evolution of Photographer Bill Jacobson: “There has always been a poetic stance in my work,” says photographer Bill Jacobson. “Whether in focus or out, it’s never been about a single narrative, but rather something beneath the surface of what’s being photographed." Explore Jacobson's work here.

An Accidental Classic: Sibylle Baier’s critically-acclaimed Colour Green was published 30 years after it was first recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Baier starred in Wim Wender's films and wrote her own songs, but abandoned her career to move to America and raise her family. Read more about how this classic finally found an audience here.

Errol Morris on Photography: What makes an “honest” photograph? Is the medium of photography more factual and authentic than other art forms? Can a photo be objective or does it always have a point of view? When does a photograph document reality? When is it propaganda? When is it art? Filmmaker Errol Morris addresses all of these questions and more in his new book Believing is Seeing.

Ira Glass on the Creative Process: Ira Glass, the host of NPR’s This American Life, gives some useful advice about the art of story telling. Remember the method you learned in college–opening paragraph, thesis sentence, supporting material? Glass says to throw that tired technique out the window!

Essay: On Crows Openness is a state of mind that the nature lover and the artist share. Art, like bird watching, is about seeing, hearing, and understanding. It requires stillness. It demands that we remain open to the unexpected. Read the entire essay here.

Nairobi-London Sound Clash: I discovered the Owiny Sigoma Band during a 2011 trip to London. This highly original, Nairobi-London sound clash, which blends traditional Kenyan Luo styles with contemporary western influences, is like nothing else I’ve heard before. Their debut album, which pulses with mellow grooves, lyre riffs, and hypnotic drums, is organic, quirky and rough around the edges, but in a good way. Listen to the record here.

This Revolution is for Display Purposes Only: Click here to explore the world of street art, the first article in an ongoing series.

The Urban Frenzy of Olive Ayhens: Olive Ayhens' neo-expressionist pen and ink and watercolor drawings are a knock-out: textured, original, and deliberately unruly. Working on location, Ayhens draws the lively center of New York City, personifying its skyscrapers in a style that is vigorous and playful, as well as idiosyncratic.

Occupy Writers: Who could have guessed that one of the sanest pieces of writing about the Occupy movement would come from children's book author Lemony Snicket? Read “13 Observations Made by Lemony Snicket while Watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance" here.

P.J. Harvey's "Let England Shake": "I only sing the songs that I can still believe," says singer P.J. Harvey. The emotionally charged "Let England Shake" is one of the strongest records of her career. Listen to samples and watch videos of Harvey's collaboration with filmmaker Seamus Murphy here.

A Secret Garden in the City: These gardens on the roof of Rockefeller Center are one of the best-kept secrets in New York City.

The Discomfort Zone: V.S. Naipaul believes that female writers are inferior and sentimental. Jonathan Franzen observes that "you can't deconstruct and undress at the same time." Has writing about love without hipster irony become a radical act for male novelists today? Read the full story here.

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction: Writers like Zadie Smith, Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, and Richard Ford offer guidance on the art of fiction writing. A sampling of their advice: "Have children." "Don't have children." "Get an accountant." "No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write." Damn. What am I going to do with all of those black turtlenecks?

Music by Goldfish: How aware are we of sound as we move through the course of our day? Which sounds do we register and which do we ignore? Do we even give the subject much thought? “Quintetto” by the Italian artist collective Quiet Ensemble is an intriguing blend of music, sound and installation art.

Doubt is Your Revelation: Jeff Sharlet's most recent book, Sweet Heaven When I Die, is a collection of 13 essays about belief, skepticism, and spirituality. Sharlet writes about Brad Will, an anarchist journalist who filmed his own murder by police; BattleCry, an evangelical youth movement devoted to spreading its particular brand of the Christian message; a new-age healer named Sondra Shaye; and renowned intellectual Cornel West.

Watch an Animation Classic: Yuriy Norshteyn’s Hedgehog in the Fog is one of the most stunning animated films ever made. Nick Park is a fan of Norshteyn's work and so is Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Click here to watch the 10-minute short film and to learn more about the Russian animator.

Composer & Cellist Paul Brantley: Brantley makes a case that Bach's cantatas are theologically subversive and gives Gwarlingo listeners a preview of his own Gnostic Cantata.

Animal Architecture: What if architects designed shelters not only to accommodate humans, but also to accommodate the animals? A five-star hotel for bugs? A towering home for bats? Why not?

More Than a Voice: A writer. A performer. A pianist. A cabaret act. A storyteller. An opera singer with a 3-4 octave range. Is there anything Joseph Keckler doesn't do?

Poetry Bombing: Explore two very different poetry bombing projects--one from the Chilean art collective Casagrande and the other by artist Agustina Woodgate.

George Bernard Shaw Exposed: Not many people realize that George Bernard Shaw was a passionate amateur photographer, as well as a prolific writer. When Shaw died at the age of 94, he left behind over 10,000 photographic prints and over 10,000 negatives in his home in Ayot St Lawrence.

Olafur Eliasson, the Danish artist who brought the sun to Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall and created man-made waterfalls in New York City, has a new project--Din blinde passager (Your blind passenger), a 295-foot-long tunnel filled with dense fog.

Movie Barcodes: A movie barcode for The Wizard of Oz. Click here to read more about movie barcodes and the use of color in cinema.

Breathbox by Antti Paalanen: Watch a mesmerizing piece of music by Finnish accordion master Antti Paalanen. "Mesmerizing accordion music?" you ask. Yes. Really.

The Fear of Failure: Even if you don't know his name, you know his work. Legendary designer Milton Glaser discusses the myth of creative genius and gives advice on how artists can move past the fear of failure. “Find out what you’re capable of doing or not capable of doing,” says Glaser. “Admit what is.” “Embrace the failure.” Watch Glaser's talk here.

Documenting a Revolution: Two filmmakers, who risked their lives to document the looting of archeological sites during the Iraq war, now find themselves in the heart of the Egyptian Revolution.

Gwarlingo on Twitter

James Crews - #TheSundayPoem via @gwarlingo, “biography, criticism, & the art...are simply facets of a larger story” http://t.co/UyjqSqzw4F
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Old article, but nice :) Arch prankster or art genius? 52 art works by british street artist Banksy http://t.co/1uPvI2zYAb Via @gwarlingo
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What do 335 pieces of candy wrapped in silver have to say about the fleeting nature of life? Learn more @gwarlingo http://t.co/f1yWgu4Gwc
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Wilco, Ruscha, Sondheim,Tom Phillips, Xu Bing & More: 11 Don’t-Miss Arts Events

Ed Ruscha at the Rose Art Museum in Waltham, Massachusetts

Contemporary Chinese Art at the Brattleboro Museum and Mass MoCA

The Polaroids of Andrei Tarkovsky : The Mystery of Everyday Life

The Sunday Poem : Joan Murray

The Visitor

Obsession & Empathy: Nan Goldin, Michael Chabon, & A Home for Indigent Bohemians

Receipts, Email, Bread Tags, Styrofoam : Rachel Perry Welty Transforms Life’s Daily Clutter into Art

Learning to Look : Whistler, Fireworks, and a New Way of Seeing

The Art of Taking Risks : 13 Years, 3500 Artists, 7 Memorable Lessons

New England Artists Finally Get Their Due at the deCordova’s 2012 Biennial

The Spectacular Snow Drawings of Simon Beck

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