Gwarlingo is a place where creative people can connect, explore, and share challenges, ideas, and resources. Gwarlingo is different because of its personal perspective, accessibility, and unique curation. Our articles offer you quality over quantity, clarity over clutter, and stories over sound bytes. At Gwarlingo, we share real conversations with real artists about ideas and process, as well as some of our own exciting discoveries. Our goal is to bring you the best work, period—regardless of its genre or popularity, while also having some fun along the way. Browse articles by category or just pull up the most recent in the list below.
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Books
I Never Knew How Blue Blueness Could Be: Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
Helena Almeida, Inhabited Painting, 1975.© Helena Almeida, courtesy Serralves Foundation Collection, Oporto, Portugal One of the joys of Gwarlingo is meeting art lovers from around the world. Sigrun Hodne and I found each other early in Gwarlingo's short history, and though she lives in Norway, and I [...]
Architect Says: Less Is More. Less Is a Bore.
Tadao Ando, Church of the Light, 1989. Osaka, Japan. Philadelphia is a city awash with memorable architecture, so it's fitting that I stumbled across The Architect Says: Quotes, Quips, and Words of Wisdom at the Philadelphia Museum of Art's store, which offers a well-curated assortment of books inside of [...]
“Naughty Nun” Mary Johnson on Existential Crisis & Mother Teresa
Sister Donata (Mary Johnson) with Mother Teresa at her first profession of vows, in Rome, June 8, 1980 When Mary Johnson left Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity after 20 years of service, she had to learn to pump her own gasoline, to [...]
Ai Weiwei’s Little Black Book
Ai Weiwei with his new book Weiwei-isms, edited by Larry Warsh I didn't expect a publication that has been touted as one of the "Best Art Books of 2012" to stand just six inches tall and contain only two photographs. But as Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's new book [...]
Soaring High: The Art of Auto-Giros, Rocket Planes, Airships, & Strange Aircraft
It's Friday and another week has almost come and gone without a mid-week post on Gwarlingo. Apologies to Gwarlingo readers for neglecting everyone but the poets the past 14 days. I've been traveling on business and working on an exciting (arts-related) project down in Philadelphia. While Gwarlingo is my [...]
The Complete Creative Part 4 : Christian McEwen on the Art of Happiness
"What has been planted is the I want! I want! of advertising, which thrives on envy and dissatisfaction. Advertising tells us that happiness can be bought if we will only put our minds to it." (William Blake, "I Want! I Want!" from For Children: The Gates of Paradise, 1793. [...]
What is Love? Joan Wickersham’s The News from Spain Has Some Surprising Answers
Joan Wickersham (Photo by Nicholas Latimer) “A story . . . can become close, airless. You cannot stay shut up in your own head anymore; you need a break, some fresh air. Let’s go outside: We’ll take a walk, down a New York City side street. It’s [...]
15+ Books Worth Reading from Hello Hello Books in Rockland, Maine
A Nancy Drew collection at Hello Hello Books in Rockland, Maine (Photo by Lacy Simons) I do quite a bit of traveling for Gwarlingo these days and one of the best things about being on the road is discovering out-of-the way, independent bookshops. For me, walking into a [...]
Rajesh Parameswaran’s Dazzling Tales of Captivity & Freedom : I Am An Executioner
If like me, you find most summer reading lists too beachy and lacking in inspiration, Rajesh Parameswaran's I Am an Executioner: Love Stories is the perfect antidote. (After all, our brains don't go on holiday just because we do). Over the past week, I've been savoring the imaginative, moving stories [...]
What Makes a Healthy Life? Writer Roger King Explores Love & Fatigue in America
"I always thought the novel, with it’s ability to show lives in their full emotional and social complexity was the best medium for understanding and illuminating the world. I thought it more important than any non-fiction I could write as an academic, or journalist, or 'expert'; It seems an almost [...]
Believing is Seeing: Errol Morris Uncovers the Mysteries of Photography
What makes an "honest" photograph---a "true" photograph? Is the medium of photography more factual and authentic than other art forms? What makes a photograph "a fake"? Can a photo be objective or does it always have a point of view? When does a photograph document reality? When is it [...]
“Hugo” Author Brian Selznick Shares 20 Favorite Children’s Books with Gwarlingo
Martin Scorsese's film adaptation of Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret is out in theaters today. Selznick's remarkable book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal (the first young adult novel to win the award for children's book illustration), was a finalist for the National Book Award, and was chosen as [...]
Little People in the City: The Street Art of Slinkachu
In recent years the London street art scene has been dominated by the brash, satirical, crowd-pleasing work of Banksy. His 2010 film Exit Through the Gift Shop, which I'll be writing about in the coming weeks, made Banksy a familiar name in certain American households, and his book, Wall [...]
Writer Jeff Sharlet: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country in Between
If you follow the subject of American religion, you have likely heard of author Jeff Sharlet. Sharlet has published five books on the subject, including C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy and The New York Times best seller The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of [...]
Photographer Bill Jacobson: A Rare Look at the Evolution of an Artist
If you're in New York be sure to stop by Julie Saul Gallery to catch Bill Jacobson's new photography show. Into the Loving Nowhere (1989 till now) opens Thursday, October 20th with a special reception from 6-8 p.m. and will be on view through December [...]