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Artistry of Plains Indians, in Full View With Groundbreaking New Exhibit
Depiction of Sand Creek Massacre by witness Howling Wolf, ca. 1875 This month Colorado marked a dark chapter on a stretch of windswept prairie: the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre. That...
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Why Museums Are Important
After 18 years of lobbying to create a national women's history museum in our nation's capital, Congress has approved the formation of a privately funded, bi-partisan commission to study and produce a...
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5 Ways to Unlock Art for Kids
What parent hasn't watched their kid come alive during a single joyful session of finger painting on butcher paper? Enjoyment-wise, it's a no brainer, plus art participation boosts a child's...
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Resonance and Memory: The Essence of Landscape
J.J. L'Heureux, Ross Ice Shelf 1 (2014), photograph, 32 x 144 inches It is difficult to pinpoint the exact date the landscape became a primary subject for artists. Wikipedia places the earliest "pure...
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ROLAND REISS: Art Review
A good half-century after it started, Roland Reiss's career continues to surprise and delight in a new exhibition at Diane Rosenstein gallery. The last time I caught up with this artist's work, a...
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A Retired Elementary School Teacher Turned Her Home Into a Folksy Fine Art Mecca
For many years, Ramona Otto was an elementary school teacher. Full disclosure: She was my elementary school teacher. She'd often ask her students to bring in certain items for projects she was working...
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'Post Mortem Presents: A Very Victorian Christmas,' Post Mortem Movement...
The party prelude hooks you. There's a Door Girl (Danielle Kaufman), a vampy pre-Henry Higgins Eliza Doolittle. A long, dark passageway - wait, is this Halloween? Rooms (so many possibilities but,...
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Chicago Showdown: Facing Up to Magritte
I confess: growing up with art-loving parents, I never thought much of Magritte. I adored the Impressionists, Picasso, Rembrandt and a handful of other painters who were--let's face it--easy to love....
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I On Exceptional Living -- Nikki Haskell: A Timeless Icon
Nikki Haskell is an exceptional woman! Photos from the collection of Nikki Haskell. Her skirts are short; her boyfriends are young; her fingernails are long; and her energy is endless. Nikki is always...
View ArticleFirst Nighter: Sting in "The Last Ship," Barney Josephson and "Café Society...
In his first-rate autobiographical musical The Last Ship, Sting -- also Gordon Sumner, son of a ship builder -- has come full circle, after a fashion. By joining the cast, at the Neil Simon, for a...
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The Art of Giving
Family Portrait Over the years during the holiday season I've donated a portion of the proceeds from my print sales to support organizations that give back to the community. This year I'm thrilled to...
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Vamping and Camping
Whenever it seems as if the world is about to crumble like a cookie (or be transformed into a pile of ash), it helps to embrace wretched excess. Like a religious deathbed conversion, wretched excess...
View ArticleArt And The Family Narrative
The other morning I was cleaning my office. Rooting through a stash of bad first novel drafts, I found a cassette tape labeled "The Harry Mayhew Project." I didn't know that I had it -- the one...
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Ten Memorable Paintings from 2014
All of these artists to watch. So few artists to look at. - Dave Hickey When I came across writer/critic Dave Hickey's quote a few nights ago on Facebook I had to smile. For the past two weeks I have...
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Burmese Days
In a recent article, "Back to a Burmese Prison By Choice"(NYT, 12/6/14 U Htein Lin, the Burmese artist and dissident is quoted thusly about his years of imprisonment, "I was completely cut off from...
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The Cultural Evolution of Art and the Net
It is interesting to consider Jean-Michel Basquiat and Al Diaz had the first Twitter accounts. Their SAMO tag (along with accompanying phrases) in certain spots around New York's downtown during the...
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When I Was a Kid, We Took Pictures With Cameras
We all know there's more than one downside to the omnipresent smartphone--the invention of the 'selfie', the calloused thumbs, the inability to bullshit our way through a discussion about, well,...
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The Importance of Non-European Christian Imagery
I recently began creating non-traditional depictions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus. And by "non-traditional," I mean non-European. Below is an Indian ("Madonna and Child as Indians") and...
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Jeff Koons' Degradation of Luxury
Image credit: Misha Pinkhasov The Pompidou Center in Paris is showing a retrospective of Jeff Koons through April 2015. It will surely be a much talked-about stop for attendees of the haute couture...
View ArticleRemembering Tomaž Šalamun
Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014) When Tomaž Šalamun arrived at a poetry festival in San Miguel de Allende two years ago with a bad back, which he had hurt tobogganing down the Great Wall of China, I was not...
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