A quiet morning at the house. A small storm over Storm (the name of the mountain) across the valley. Cats munching breakfast, tea cooling. The wind blows in small, spring, storm gusts. I ponder, again, the trade-off. The trade-off of not having a college administrator’s life and instead having the life of an adjunct who […]
Duchamp, without a doubt, gave us our most brilliant theories on art and context. What is of the utmost importance to remember is that these ideas include the maturity and quality of the work as well as the actual object itself. “Bad” work in the context of a “good” gallery can be pure unadulterated crap. […]
We are in the advent of new scholarship on Agnes Martin; inclusive of some superior re-contextualizing of her work. Among the things to consider in this wake is a new type of model for women artists. Many thought they understood Martin. Pretty straight forward, in fact, there was nothing there really. Well, we instinctively knew […]
Talking is highly overrated; at times, even unnatural. Many people fill the space they are frightened by with their own words. Interjecting themselves into places in which they do not belong. Other sentients go about their days in relative quietude. There are moments of exchange – even chatter for some, but we as human, […]
5:41am a contemplative studio practice (I) The moon is bright through my studio window – the electric blue in the sky continues to increase. Emptiness. The basis of the contemplative studio practice is emptiness. Shunyata. For the Western mode of thought perhaps an oxymoron because emptiness is from where all things come. How can that […]
Wyoming floats and we can float in it when we are there. The land and its history make it so. Those who live there have a different perspective and more importantly a different perception. This is perhaps of the greatest importance for the artists there. In the Buddhist tradition it is our perception which roots […]
Notes for and to my students…. I often talk with you about your studio practice. No Pictures is dedicated, in part, to you because you ask how I do what I do. My hope is that this curiosity extends itself to the study and understanding of how others do what they do in this field. […]
Grandma and Grandpa were farmers from Italy. When they arrived in Chicago in 1910, to what is now Jefferson Park’s Linder Avenue, it was all land. They had a garden that produced numerous vegetables; among them, corn, which my mother sold by the ear on the street corner during the depression. Everywhere Apollonia and Salvatore […]
Sun, pink, illuminates mountains outside the studio window. Pink, then changing to orange. Me in silence, Serendipity sits in the window. New paintings for the new year – i clear a space off the studio table so she can sit. At 7:30am, continuing to squeeze the last absolute breaths of this immensely creative time away […]
2014, on the cusp – always excited by this time of year. Missed about 11 days in my written journal while life came into view sharply; teaching, students, and home routine back to its particular rhythm after much travel on my husband’s part. New work in the studio. Completed a painting that hit its mark. […]