Street Art Part 2: Claiming Public Space

This post is the second in a three-part series on street performance. To read the first part, click here. Public space is a funny thing. Ideally, it is meant to be shared—we each have the right to use it for whatever we need, provided that we respect it and leave it in a condition so ...

Street Art Part 1: Finding an Audience

When I went on a trip to Edinburgh last fall, one of my main priorities was to immerse myself in the local culture as deeply as possible. I partially achieved this through participating in planned events, but my favorite memories are from the things I didn’t plan. One instance that will always stick out in ...

The Sketchbook Project

There is a notion that art is created by trained professionals and displayed in neat corridors with golden frames for the appreciation of upper class museum patrons. As an individual with a creative side and only time for casual glancing, I find this conception of art both hampering and isolating; and frankly I don’t want ...

Rise Up: Art After Disaster

In Narratives and Landscapes, Barry Lopez suggests that our interior landscapes are ordered according to our exterior landscapes – in essence who we are is influenced, if not completely shaped, by our geographical and cultural surroundings. We often see this idea in action when natural disasters strike. We have the unfortunate opportunity to witness how ...

Memphis & Eggleston

Prior to William Eggleston’s 1976 exhibition of color photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, fine art photography was almost exclusively black and white works carefully composed through the viewfinder. Eggleston’s debut solo show was heavily criticized as commercial and boring, but it would eventually establish color photography as an accepted and ...

Review: Two Museums in Montréal

Any art-loving tourist visiting New York City would be remiss in failing to see the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, or the Guggenheim.  On a recent trip to MOMA, I found myself surrounded by European and Asian tourists who had traveled far to see Picasso and Duchamp. Walking from floor to ...

Art or Craft (or Crap)?

“He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”

Better better better

I recall once sitting in the dark in AP Art History, watching as slides clicked in and out of place, until my teacher came upon an image of a toilet. “It’s Marcel Duchamp,” she said with a chuckle. Last week, I walked a client through the art gallery, showing him various paintings, and extolling their ...

Interview with a Craft Blogger

I’ve found that creative people are rarely creative in just one area.  You may meet a painter who isn’t as good at the other arts, but how many painters just don’t care about them?  To talk about the overlap between creative endeavors I spoke to Becca Pollock, a 19-year-old college student who is interested in ...

“Girl With Death Mask,” Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo’s 1938 painting “Girl with Death Mask (She Plays Alone)” resides in Nagoya City Art Museum in Japan. In it, the girl is wearing a mask one might see during the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) in Mexico. The Day of the Dead is on November 2nd, where those living commemorate ...

Why Realism Matters

During my first painting class here, my teacher once asked a student what she thought of a diptych still life by Antonio López-García. Her response was immediate and confident: “It’s boring.” In some ways, I suppose one really can say that a painting of a few carnations in a glass qualifies as boring. The painting contains no drama or engaging narrative. While the successful accuracy of López-García’s work may impress some people, most contemporary artists and art lovers are more interested in originality than traditional technique. The problem with the painting is probably the fact that it’s a still life of a few carnations in a glass, when the artist could instead have painted an abstract statement about his medium. It’s conventional.

To See a Forest for the… Artistic Possibilities

I completely missed Earth Week, as it seems that environmental groups are not fans of putting up event flyers, for some reason.  So for my post this week I have some interesting pieces of Land/Earth Art, or “Earthworks” as pioneer Robert Smithson called them. Rising with the environmental movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s in ...