Tag Archives: art

You Shall Not Crucify Mankind on a Cross of… Crypto

Posted on May 11, 2025 by JMN

With apologies to William Jennings Bryan, it’s called a “rug pull”: A celebrity touts a new digital coin, prices soar and then insiders who own most of the coins pull the rug: They sell their stakes for a big profit … Continue reading →

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‘Modest, Solitary Buildings Were Often Her Subject Matter’: Gretchen Dow Simpson (1939-2025)

Posted on May 10, 2025 by JMN

While modest, solitary buildings were often her subject matter, Ms. Simpson’s work was not purely representational. A former commercial photographer, she applied a telephoto approach to many of her paintings, zooming in on windows, doorways or rooftops to emphasize the … Continue reading →

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Pippa Garner (1942-2024): Setting an Example

Posted on May 10, 2025 by JMN

“I tried to set an example that nobody else can follow.” (Pippa Garner) A one-off slogan printed on her T-shirt series called “Shirtstorm” was “These Are My Remains.” (Will Heinrich, “Pippa Garner, Conceptual Artist With a Satirical Streak, Dies at … Continue reading →

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‘I’m Sorry, I Only Do My Own Ideas’

Posted on April 17, 2025 by JMN

The larger, more established studios, he later recalled, did not take to his eccentric work, responding with blank stares and, in one instance, suggesting religious counseling. My title is illustrator Brad Holland’s comment in turning down an assignment offered by … Continue reading →

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Descending to the Heights!

Posted on April 16, 2025 by JMN
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I Need Some Writer’s Block

Posted on March 26, 2025 by JMN

Really, I should draw, paint and read more, write less. It’s a constant struggle to pipe down.  Poetry, for one thing, triggers me. Intending to read a bait of versifying, before I know it I’m a keyboard Roman candle ejaculating … Continue reading →

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Is Divine Wet Work an Anomaly or a Feature?

Posted on March 22, 2025 by JMN

After the first death there is no other. (From Dylan Thomas’s “A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London.”) A euphemism I retain from immersion in spy thriller fiction is the term “wet work.” In … Continue reading →

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Did Someone Mention Drugstore Cowboys?

Posted on March 20, 2025 by JMN

The Lone Ranger rides again! That was my first take on the photo. Then it stirred my childish you-haven’t-earned-your-Stetson attitude. I was sure the article would nudge me toward curdled cowboy hat bête noire-ism. But wait: As he cavorted across the … Continue reading →

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Messy Bacon

Posted on March 5, 2025 by JMN

I know an artist who thinks her studio is cluttered. The photo is from this article. (c) 2025 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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‘The Gravity of Curiosity’

Posted on October 31, 2024 by JMN

… The gravity of curiosity. Our lives should be lived in interrogatives rather than imperatives. It’s more magnanimous to move through the world with wonder than with unearned certainty… [Poems] encourage us to ask the complicated questions, both of ourselves … Continue reading →

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