Tag Archives: art

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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‘Colorful Ooze’

Posted on October 19, 2024 by JMN

The Met’s new show… makes clear how astonishing it is that paint, of all things, became the center of Western art… There may never be another big American exhibition about this freakish little era, when artists figured out how to … Continue reading →

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Artists’ Palettes. They’re Artyfacts!

Posted on October 16, 2024 by JMN

The phrase “smeared with [a] personalised spectrum of paint” snagged me. The palettes are interesting in relation to who used them and/or for what they suggest about the painter’s “attack,” for lack of a better word. Fifty of these small … Continue reading →

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Martha Diamond: ‘Looming Masses, Fleeting Vistas, Overwhelming Immersion’

Posted on September 9, 2024 by JMN

She completed an oil painting in one sitting, often mixing colors on the surface of the canvas. Martha Diamond’s approach to painting, and her execution, delight me. I dream of achieving something even approximating her studied generality in my own … Continue reading →

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Attack of the Cosmic Chuckle

Posted on September 6, 2024 by JMN

I heard that Iris Murdoch said (or wrote), “Everything that comforts is fake.” Then I read: According to the best theories available, matter — everything we can see and feel in the universe — should not exist. Every particle of … Continue reading →

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Claudette Johnson (1959 – Present), Artist of the British West Midlands ‘Blk Art Group’

Posted on September 5, 2024 by JMN

“I tend to just make a mess.” (Claudette Johnson) Artist-blogger OutsideAuthority’s mention of an exhibition of work by Claudette Johnson in Birmingham (England) caused me to discover an article about Johnson’s first solo show in New York last year. These … Continue reading →

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Terrific Image, Perfect Caption

Posted on September 3, 2024 by JMN
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