The NY Times publishes a puzzle, “Connections,” that presents you with a grid of 16 words and challenges you to find groups of four that share something. In a recent puzzle, for example, “charcoal, ink, paint, pastel” form the group “Art mediums.” Perhaps I can think of photography in a similar way. Set out to […]
I do not write for the public. G.M. Hopkins I don’t quite know how Hopkins meant this comment. His poetry suggests, to me, that he meant he didn’t write popular verse. He wrote for an audience of one or maybe for no audience. He wrote what he needed to write and didn’t give any thought […]
Ambition for wealth is the enemy of artistic excellence. Leon Battista Alberti (ca. 1436)
A certain kind of sadness permeates craft fairs and art shows. Tables and booths filled with the creative efforts of some person, who is often left standing or sitting alone amongst all these works. Maybe some passerby will be interested enough to stop and look, or even buy a piece. The excitement creators bring to […]
She rounded the corner with a purpose. The insistent cadence of her steps — slap slap slap slap — echoed off the buildings as she marched up the street. Was she heading somewhere or leaving something behind? Or just out for an early Sunday walk, wearing color-coordinated pink headphones, jacket, and flip flops? Whatever the backstory, […]
As I make more books and things (collections of postcards are in the works), I increasingly think of photos in series. I don’t deny the power of a single, amazing photograph, but there is a value in seeing photographs as part of a collection of related images. I have long appreciated the powerful work of […]
Arnold Schoenberg reportedly said: If it is art it is not for all, and if it is for all it is not art. This comment seems to call into question Karl Ove Knausgård’s link between challenging art and Protestantism, not because Schoenberg doesn’t agree that art is difficult but because Schoenberg clearly didn’t link art […]
The woman sitting at the table outside is the only person not consumed by a screen. She divides her time between a book on Chakra Healing and the tiny dog in her lap, which she has wrapped in a blanket despite the bright, warm day. She looks up eagerly when anybody approaches as if hoping […]
So I am pleased that you find «Ti con zero» “likable”; but the more unlikable a book is (that is, hard to take in, because of our habits of thought and our tastes) the more it counts; the more laborious it is to take in, the more it counts I. Calvino, The Written World, 64
I stop here every year for gas, tacos, and supplies. I often spend a night in town. When I do, it’s always a burger and slice of pie at Ray’s. This time I spent a few hours wandering around town. I passed two older women sitting in their yard, with a friendly but yappy little […]