Author Archives: JMN

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day, and watch Netflix and Prime Video for entertainment. I like to read and memorize poetry.

“Do Not Erase”

Posted on December 9, 2019

For the last year, Jessica Wynne, a photographer and professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, has been photographing mathematicians’ blackboards, finding art in the swirling gangs of symbols sketched in the heat of imagination, argument and … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Random Woke Affect & Filth Squirting

Posted on December 8, 2019

A phrase from the past has pungent currency today. In 1896, an editorial in the Guardian mentioned a derogatory rumor about Lord Rosebery. Quoth the lord: “… The allusion in the Guardian… gave me the opportunity that I had long … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary | Tagged | Leave a comment

Outrenoir: Ultra-Black

Posted on December 6, 2019

French painter Pierre Soulages turns 100 this December, 2019. He is being accorded an exhibit at the Louvre. The only other painters given an exhibit there during their lifetimes were Picasso and Chagall. Since 1979, Soulages has worked exclusively in … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Don’t Slip, Ma’am

Posted on December 3, 2019

Americans watch the royals, rapt, for signs of slippage and failure, but also out of a kind of awe at how long they’ve sustained the illusion of honor. Yes, they’re mooches and hypocrites, but—… (Lili Loofbourow, “The Mesmerizing Disgrace of … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged | 1 Comment

‘Your Painting Is Your Best Friend’

Posted on December 2, 2019

Cecily Brown, age 50, is the daughter of British writer Shena Mackay and David Sylvester, the art critic and curator. When Brown was 18 and struggling financially, the painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling let her paint in her garage. “Maggi … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Celia Paul

Posted on December 1, 2019

Celia Paul was one of five daughters of Christian missionaries. She spent her early childhood in India, then in Exmoor, southwest England. Her father became bishop of Bradford. “Why, she wonders, did he have all these children he didn’t have … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Exquisite Vapors

Posted on November 30, 2019

These are voices echoed by Spencer Bokat-Lindell recently in the NYTimes. Some of [Buttigieg’s] ideas… don’t fall neatly on the ideological spectrum… Mr. Buttigieg’s triangulations are more banal… Displays a facility with rhetoric … His appeal, in aesthetic terms, is … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment