Bill Viola, Catherine's Room, 2001. Video installation. (Photo © Bill Viola courtesy tate.org) Resolutions It's the New Year, which means that many of us are taking stock of our personal habits, both good and bad, and resolving to do better. But how many things on this year's list [...]
"In my personal life, if I don't have a project, I don't have any discipline," says performance artist Marina Abramovic. Discipline and daily ritual were one of the subjects of her 2002 piece The House with the Ocean View. Abramovic spent 12 straight days living on three open platforms in [...]
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 [...]
Poet Gregory Orr reading at the 2012 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival (Photo by Michelle Aldredge) With his new book, River Inside the River: Poems, Gregory Orr set a high bar for himself. His intention: to write three lengthy pieces that combine the intensity of lyric poetry with [...]
Bill Traylor, Runaway Goat Cart, c. 1939-42. Opaque watercolor and graphite on cream card, 14 x 22 inches. (Photo by Will Brown courtesy the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection) "I painted pictures in the gutter," the African-American artist Purvis Young once remarked, "and [...]
James Crews’ poetry collection, The Book of What Stays, is full of evocative landscapes and secret lives. There is the old woman in Chernobyl who refuses to leave, ice fishing with Patsy Cline, and the moving poems about artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
Polaroid by Andrei Tarkovsky from the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids from Thames and Hudson. “Never try to convey your idea to the audience," said Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, "---it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they’ll find within themselves the means to [...]
Barry Underwood, Archimedes. This installation was created at the construction site for the new Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. (Photo © Barry Underwood. Click to Enlarge) As New York artists search for the next affordable, urban frontier in Bushwick and Queens, a renaissance of sorts is taking [...]
The Tank in Rangely, Colorado, is considered one of the sonic marvels of the world within a certain circle of composers and sound artists. (Photo courtesy Friends of the Tank) Is there a connection between noise and money? Which sounds are healing to us as [...]
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 [...]
A still from Wim Wenders' Pina (Photo © Neue Road Movies GmbH. A Sundance Selects Release. Click to Enlarge) Timing is everything, particularly in the case of Wim Wenders' film Pina. Wenders, director of the critically acclaimed Wings of Desire and Buena Vista Social Club, first saw Pina [...]
Horace Pippin, Mr. Prejudice, 1943. Oil on canvas, 18 x 14" (Image courtesy of The Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Matthew Moore) Last summer I was strolling through the galleries of the new Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, surrounded by the exquisite paintings of Matisse, Modigliani, [...]
Sam Green narrating his live documentary The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston (Photo by Sam Allison) "I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am [...]
One of the images from Anthony Sherin's Solo, Piano - N.Y.C. Since creating its controversial pay wall in 2011, The New York Times has continued to explore new ways of merging storytelling with technology. Their recent multi-media piece "Snowfall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek" is an impressive glimpse at [...]
"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. [...]
Poet Caitlin Doyle (Photo by Mike Robinson) Rhyme is tricky business for a contemporary poet. In an environment where free-verse dominates, how can a writer make a traditional technique like rhyme meaningful and innovative, and not simply a hollow, reactionary gesture against the status-quo? [...]
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 [...]
In 2007 artist Eve S. Mosher used beacons and chalk to mark the projected high water line in Brooklyn and Manhattan. (Battery Park photo by Hose Cedeno courtesy highwaterline.org) Artist Eve Mosher in 2007 (Photo courtesy highwaterline.org) "I never wanted this to be [...]
"I can remember very well writing 'Thanks for the Ride' because my first baby was lying in the crib beside me...I was twenty-two."(Photo: Alice Munro by Derek Shapton) The Challenges of Motherhood Alice Ann Laidlaw was born in the rural town of Wingham, Ontario, the daughter of a [...]
Poet James Arthur (Photo by Sean Hill) "That feeling of becoming a new person in a different place, even if it's an illusion, is intoxicating to me, and always has been," says poet James Arthur. "I love writing about places, but only places where I don't belong." James's [...]
Julia Jacquette, Blond, Shoulder, 2011. Oil on wood panel. 10 x 7.5 inches (Photo by Jean Vong) It's hard not to be mesmerized by Julia Jacquette 's hypnotic paintings. Their luminous, rich surfaces are intoxicating, and yet there is so much more happening in Jacquette's work than [...]
Every day we're faced with the decision of how and where to focus our attention. Sustained attention may be the most endangered resource in our modern age. We often forget that we have a choice about how we spend our time, as well as how we use technology. No one [...]
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 [...]
A ballerina by British street artist Banksy (Photo courtesy banksy.co.uk) When Gwarlingo readers give me feedback, I listen. You've been telling me that you'd like to see more articles about process and the challenges of being an artist. I've appreciated your emails and comments. Today, I'm excited [...]
New poetry publications have been piling up in my post office box, a sure sign that the fall book season is here. One of the best surprises that's appeared in my mail in recent weeks is Copper Canyon's When My Brother Was an Aztec by poet Natalie Diaz. Diaz, a member [...]