Recent Articles
The Sunday Poem: Don Colburn’s Tomorrow Too-The Brenda Monologues
Brenda Arrieta Killian in the wig she wore after shaving her hair at the beginning of chemotherapy. Brenda was the subject of a series of articles Sunday Poet Don Colburn wrote for The Oregonian and is the subject of his new chapbook Tomorrow Too: The Brenda Monologues. (Photo by Stephanie Yao [...]
A Quest for the Quiet Mind: Can the Art World Make Room for Sincerity?
"There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall...," wrote Agnes Martin. "Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting. Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it...as you would cross an empty beach to look at [...]
The Sunday Poem: Lauren K. Alleyne’s Difficult Fruit
Lauren Alleyne hails from the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. (Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths) Poetry is like ice-cream," poet Lauren Alleyne recently told an interviewer when asked to compare poetry to a food. "It completes joy, but is also a natural remedy for heartache. You can enjoy [...]
If Other Professions Were Paid Like Artists
In 2011 German conceptual artist Hans-Peter Feldmann was named the winner of the eighth Biennal Hugo Boss Prize, a bi-annual award bestowed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for significant achievement in contemporary art, with an attached honorarium of $100,000. In a unique gesture to the museum Feldmann proposed the [...]
The Sunday Poem: C.D. Wright Explores Civil Rights in “One With Others”
Poet C.D. Wright (Photo by W.T. Pfefferle via Flickr Commons) I first encountered C.D. Wright's poetry through the back door of photography. Years ago, when I was studying contemporary artists working with 19th century photographic processes, I stumbled across Deborah Luster's collaboration with C.D. Wright, titled One Big [...]
The Perils of Being a Solo Artist: 11 Ways to Find the Support You Need
A Boston street sign that has been hacked by MIT students. (Photo by Alessondra Springmann) I have a confession to make...Asking for help is tough for me. Ditto for collaborating. Yes. I love people. I love being a connector and introducing creative folks to one another. I love [...]
The Sunday Poem: Judith Taylor’s Sex Libris
Judith Taylor (Photo courtesy the author) As the psychoanalysts Jung and Freud both observed, fairy tales frequently reveal more about a culture than its sophisticated literary texts. These are the stories we hear at a young, impressionable age. Whether we're conscious of it or not, these tales of angelic [...]
Kill Me Now Abs & Conversation Lashes with Artist Rachelle Beaudoin
An installation view of Rachelle Beaudoin's Conversation Lashes. Laser cut paper, digital photographs, 2013. (Photo by Michelle Aldredge) On Thursday I attended the opening for Rachelle Beaudoin's new show, Let's Work it Out, at the Carroll House Gallery in Keene, New Hampshire. Rachelle investigates feminine iconography and identity [...]
The Sunday Poem: Dean Young’s Bender
Do not encourage small children / to play the trombone as the shortness / of their arms may prove quite frustrating, / imprinting a lifelong aversion to music / although in rare cases a sense of unreachability / may inspire operas of delicate auras.
Skyscrapers: A Cure For Loneliness & Overconsumption? Judith Dupré on the World’s Most Extraordinary Buildings
Lewis Wickes Hine, A construction worker at the Empire State Building, 1931. (Photo courtesy the New York Public Library Digital Gallery) Books Worth Reading Skyscrapers: A History of the World’s Most Extraordinary Buildings By Judith Dupré. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 176 pages [...]
Setting Creative Goals for the New Year? Let Fear Be Your Guide
Bill Viola, Catherine's Room, 2001. Video installation. (Photo © Bill Viola courtesy tate.org) Resolutions It's the New Year, which means that many of us are taking stock of our personal habits, both good and bad, and resolving to do better. But how many things on this year's list [...]
Crystal Bliss: What the Snow Photos of Doug + Mike Starn Teach Us about Originality
Doug + Mike Starn, from the series alleverythingthatisyou, 2006-2007. (Photograph Doug + Mike Starn courtesy dmstarn.com) Doug + Mike Starn, Big Bambú: You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop, 2010. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images North America via [...]
The Sunday Poem: Patricia Fargnoli’s Winter
Patricia Fargnoli published her first book of poetry at the age of 62. When Pulitzer-Prize-winner Mary Oliver chose Patricia Fargnoli's first book, Necessary Light, as the winner of The May Swenson Book Award, Fargnoli was 62 years old. "I began writing poems in high school and had a few [...]
Gwarlingo’s 26 Favorite Art, Photography, Film & Design Books of 2013
As an ex-librarian and book collector, one of my favorite things to do is to ferret out new publications and share them with readers. Whenever I'm traveling, I scour local bookstores and museum shops for interesting books. (Carting heavy art tomes home on an airplane is a familiar [...]
The Sunday Poem: Sophie Cabot Black’s The Exchange
(Attributed to) Caravaggio, Sacrifice of Isaac, c. 1598. Oil on canvas 46 in × 68 in. (Photo via Wikimedia courtesy the Piasecka-Johnson Collection, Princeton) Sophie Cabot Black (Photo by Alexander Black) "For me, the act of writing comes out of query," poet Sophie Cabot Black explains in a recent interview [...]