Category Archives: Quotations

Things people said.

Beauford Delaney: ‘A Yearning for Ornament’

Posted on December 18, 2025 by JMN

It leaves more room to follow what’s actually happening on the paper. … Though he drew them with confidence and care, you can see him yearning to ornament and exalt his subjects rather than just transcribe them. … The pulsing … Continue reading →

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Marlon Mullen Talks With Paint

Posted on December 17, 2025 by JMN

“I think he feels understood through his painting, and that gives him a way to talk to the world.” (The artist’s sister) I feel an uncanny affinity with Marlon Mullen’s ceremony of preparation! A colleague and I have lately ruminated … Continue reading →

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Mel Leipzig, the ‘Chekhov of Trenton’

Posted on December 5, 2025 by JMN

The acrylic canvases of Mel Leipzig, a painter christened by Peter Schjeldahl as the “Chekhov of Trenton,” reach me as analogs to the loudest arena-rock virtuoso guitar hero solos you can think of. They are an ostentation of look-what-I-can-do. They … Continue reading →

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‘The Things That You’re Liable to Read in the Bible…’

Posted on December 2, 2025 by JMN

“… They ain’t necessarily so,” goes the song in Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. “If we could stop coming at the Bible postured as though we’re the ones that own it… to prop up, whether it’s theologies, whatever makes us comfortable, … Continue reading →

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Never Too Many Books

Posted on November 21, 2025 by JMN

… Peter-Ayers Tarantino[’s aesthetic] recalls that of maximalist bibliophiles of centuries past, including Marcel Proust and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was formed during a life on the road. In the Abstract Expressionism section, Tarantino extracts, almost without looking, a thick … Continue reading →

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‘I’m Too Old to Paint Such Beautiful Things’

Posted on November 15, 2025 by JMN

Monet made the comment about being too old before starting to paint the town feverishly. I’ve seen enough of his paintings for now. They’re on pillowcases and doilies. They’re everywhere!  What I relish is seeing the man himself feeding the … Continue reading →

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The Buck Stops… There (CAGA)

Posted on November 2, 2025 by JMN

“My message to America is, first, the fact that your government is failing you, right now. Poverty is not red or blue, is not a Republican or Democrat issue. If you are in a position that you can’t feed your … Continue reading →

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Rooms That Photograph Like Paintings

Posted on October 31, 2025 by JMN

“I’m going to hesitate and say it’s settled into what it’s meant to be.” (Martyn Thompson) I was taken with the handmade rooms in Martyn Thompson’s Sydney, Australia home. They’re atmospherically profiled in the photographs. Each shot has a painterly … Continue reading →

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Quickness, Sureness, Deep Intelligence

Posted on October 24, 2025 by JMN

Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have. (Denise Levertov) I had the unique experience of being exposed to a poem orally, recited by the poet no less, and of understanding her … Continue reading →

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He Wants to Get Run Over by a Song

Posted on October 21, 2025 by JMN

“We keep moving. We keep putting one foot in front of the other and wanting to be here. It takes a lot for somebody to decide they don’t want to be here… The world’s kind of painful — but God, … Continue reading →

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