A Vessel Filling Slowly
This past week I was in New York City and saw West of the Future, a show of oil and distemper paintings by the California and Iceland based artist John Zurier. The paintings are on display at the venerable Peter Blum Gallery in midtown Manhattan on 57th street. The show runs through April 4. Sometimes […]
Letter From New York
Art week in New York has been stereotyped as an endless pit of marketable art floating in a sea of socialites perusing from pier to pier and down to Park Avenue in search of the next great buy. My experience at New York Art Week was anything but stereotypical. I visited the must-see venues such […]
Letter from Springfield Pro-Text: When Words Enter Visual Art
Not every Friday the 13th is as memorable as the opening reception and new exhibition at the Illinois State Museum-Springfield Gallery. Curated by the museum’s Robert Sill, Pro-Text: When Words Enter Visual Art “explores the various ways artists choose to combine language in their visual art. It features art by self-taught artists and works by […]
Tom Towhey, Cincinnati Artist
Several years after I moved to the Cincinnati area in 1992, a friend took me to an art gallery near my house where I saw a work on paper by Tom Towhey. It was part of a series, the last one available for purchase. I was instinctively drawn to the subtle shades of brown that […]
February 28, 2015: Reflections at the End of Black History Month. Where We At? Dealing (with) Black Feminism
By Venise Keys, Edited by Cynthia Kukla In the great tradition of Black Feminism, I have integrated a daily practice of self-love into my lifestyle as a full-time graduate student. This self-love is deeper than an assortment of wooden Afrocentric jewelry or a proclaiming Black Nationalist flag (although I proudly have both)…it is an active […]
Joyce Phillips Young
“My art reflects my journey,” said Joyce Phillips Young, an African American artist who has created acrylic paintings for many years. “I have come to know that life through its myriad of experiences and challenges teaches us many lessons to guide us along the way,’’ she said. “It is my desire to create art that […]
ART FOR A BETTER WORLD
I. Images For A Better World: Carole WINTERS, Visual Artist Carole Winters, born in Northern Kentucky, spent most of her childhood in Western New York where her father, an electrical engineer, had relocated for work in the emerging television industry of the mid-50s. At age ten, a visit to a major exhibition of the work […]
Poems by Louis Zoellar Bickett
“…Life gives its whole heart And death gives its secret…” —from The Work of the Painter by Paul Eluard (translated by Samuel Beckett) BUDDHA IN THE BACKYARD (COVERED IN 11” OF SNOW. ODDLY A ROBIN CALLS IN THE DISTANCE. WINTER A VIGILANT, CONSISTENT TUNDRA, 20 DAYS TILL SPRING) Some secrets come too late. Some secrets […]
Poems by Huck Fairman
The Year Picture some old man trying to say something profound about the year, about its turnings, its seasons, its existence in the air. Looking slowly up to the horizon, or wall, his eyes parturient, pulsating teared with his vision, announce his soul shall speak. His lips part, purse, then quiver as he offers […]
Book Review: The Secret Wisdom of Earth by Christopher Scotton
Another exciting debut novel is out, this one entitled The Secret Wisdom of the Earth, and is written by Christopher Scotton. It’s very much akin to Smith Henderson’s Fourth of July Creek, which was listed on my best fiction of the year list for 2014. Scotton is a great story teller, and his novel is […]