If you have ever read a better book on making art than Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland … I would love to know! Art & Fear is my absolute favorite in the genre of creativity, I read it all the time, and it…
Category: Aesthetics
Have no fear!
Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it. ― Salvador Dalí In a recent post, the Australian urban sketcher Liz Steel, presents her motivation for keeping a daily sketchbook in a very simple and elegant way, she says: My main reason for sketching regularly is to keep a visual journal of my life (…
Art and Fear
Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. Making art is dangerous and revealing. Making art precipitates self-doubt, stirring deep waters that lay between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might be. I guess I mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again: Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards)…
Regarding Beauty
Beauty has been a recurring theme in these writings of mine – it’s a concept constantly slipping away from any final definition. Andrew Wyeth, “Frostbitten” (1962), watercolor on paper (Private Collection. © Andrew Wyeth) In his book Why Beauty is Key to Everything Alan Moore writes: I have always been fascinated by beautiful things: architecture, furniture, books. Beautiful…
Finally some good news:
I’d like to think I can represent all those artists who heroically have kept going and are successful, but are not recognised or acclaimed. —Phyllida Barlow Can it be true, as some say: Old women are replacing young men in the art world We can at least hope! After having been overlooked for decades, the…
Allow the self to be distracted — (Ars Poetica XVI)
— wasting time is the most personal, most private, most intimate form of conversation with oneself, as well as with another. Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures by Mary Ruefle * Susan Hiller: Dream Mapping (1973/74) Dream Mapping, 1973 was an art event provocatively poised between an experiment (social or scientific) and a performance without an…
Landmarks
Katharine Harmon – YOU ARE HERE: Maps intrigue us, perhaps none more than those that ignore mapping conventions. the Bedolina Map The Rock 1 of Bedolina, the so-called Bedolina Map, is a famous engraved prehistoric rock which is part of the Camonica valley (Alps, Italian side, Lombardy region) petroglyph complex. It is known as being…
Intimacy is not a quality in itself
I have just read a poorly written book about abuse and strained family relations. A novel which, to my surprise, is winning a lot of praise and awards here in Norway these days. A kind of book that I suspect get most of its attention for what it possibly reveals about public figures (even if…
Edouard Louis
I have yet to read any of Edouard Louis’ books, but I still found this interview: Fact or fiction: autobiographical novels with Édouard Louis – books podcast very interesting & thought provoking. I’ve rarely heard any contemporary writer – or thinker – reflect in a clearer and more precise language on the relationship between identity and…
From Evan Lavender-Smith’s Old Notebooks
(could also be read as writing prompts) ~ Memoir beginning with detailed narrative description of subject’s rich and fertile childhood slowly disintegrates into list of difficult books he read as an adult. ~ Academic essay, after Moretti, quantifying the extent to which Jackson Pollock’s paintings influenced late-20th-century hairstyles. ~ Story about a mother who develops…
