July 4th
This year, working from the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada Day on July 1 gets all the attention. But with July 4 quickly approaching, I find myself looking through firework photos from years past across American towns.
The Sunday Poem: “Winter Heat” by Sierra Golden
I always try to be on the lookout for moments of sudden attention in my life, like the one Sierra Golden describes so vividly in “Winter Heat.” Like her, I believe this is how a poem happens: some sound or image observed in stillness shifts something inside us, and we do our best to find the language to capture that unexpected change in perception.
The Beauty of Boxes
Earlier this week, as I struggled to open a package from the mail, I sighed and wished that boxes were better designed. But with it being almost Thanksgiving here in America, I knew the stores would already be full of Christmas wares. And, accordingly, some very interesting boxes!
Malevich Moves!
Untitled by Liubov Popova (1917) / Suprematist Composition (blue rectangle over the red beam) by Kazimir Malevich (1916) / Proun GK by El Lissitzky (c. 1922) Please scroll down after reading this article to view the videos mentioned therein. Part of my joy [...]
I Spy With My Little Eye…
Maybe as a child you played the game “I spy with my little eye…“? Or on road trips, the license plate game? Or the letter game (things always get stuck on Q and Z)? I have fond memories of childhood trips driving across America whiling away the hours with things like these. I still love to wander, whether in the car or by foot, and am always on the lookout for new visual information...
Dan Mills: What’s in a Name? (The Secret Lives of Maps)
Dan Mills is, in addition to being a very talented painter, a wealth of piercing information: 31 states are named after indigenous words, one in 113 people worldwide are displaced from their homes, one in five Syrians are refugees, Maine is the state with the smallest number of incarcerated people per capita in America yet is only the median for this statistic among countries worldwide, and New Hampshire is considered the “most free” state.
A Quest for the Quiet Mind: Can the Art World Make Room for Sincerity?
"There’s nobody living who couldn’t stand all afternoon in front of a waterfall...," wrote Agnes Martin. "Anyone who can sit on a stone in a field awhile can see my painting. Nature is like parting a curtain, you go into it...as you would cross an empty beach to look at [...]
If Other Professions Were Paid Like Artists
In 2011 German conceptual artist Hans-Peter Feldmann was named the winner of the eighth Biennal Hugo Boss Prize, a bi-annual award bestowed by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for significant achievement in contemporary art, with an attached honorarium of $100,000. In a unique gesture to the museum Feldmann proposed [...]
The Perils of Being a Solo Artist: 11 Ways to Find the Support You Need
A Boston street sign that has been hacked by MIT students. (Photo by Alessondra Springmann) I have a confession to make...Asking for help is tough for me. Ditto for collaborating. Yes. I love people. I love being a connector and introducing creative folks to one another. I love [...]
Setting Creative Goals for the New Year? Let Fear Be Your Guide
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 [...]
Patti Smith’s Advice to Artists: We’re Pioneers in a New Time
"Life is going to be difficult," says artist Patti Smith. "Ride with it." (Photo via cbc.ca) “In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth." These are the words of rock legend and National-Book-Award winner Patti Smith. The advice is [...]
How To Be An Artist
(Drawing by Kate Holden) If there is one piece of advice I could give to artists of all disciplines, in all stages of their careers, it would be this: make art. Period. Writer and art critic Sigrun Hodne posted this simple, but brilliant drawing on her blog, Sub [...]
Daily Rituals: How Artists Create (And Avoid Creating) Their Art
"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 [...]
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 [...]
John Cage on Beginning
Last night I came across this quote in my friend's office in Philadelphia. Creating art that resonates or impacting the world around you isn't the result of ambitious ideas or flawless execution. It's the result of doing. Start. Now. You can explore more Gwarlingo posts about the creative process [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
Gwarlingo “Sells Out”…To You
(Photo taken in Copenhagen, Hovedstaden, DK. by Zephyrance via Flickr Commons) You're curious. Open-minded. Creative. You're an artist or arts lover who isn't afraid to be challenged. Gwarlingo, like the arts in general, is about seeing the world in a way we've never seen before. Whether it's [...]
Chuck Close, Alice Munro, & Jack White on Creativity & Constraint
"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 [...]
Writer Christian McEwen on Creativity and Slowing Down
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 [...]
The Complete Creative Part 1 : How “If-Only Syndrome” Derails Us As Artists
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 [...]
Being André Gregory : Before and After Dinner
Self-portraits by actor and theatre director André Gregory (Photo courtesy Atlas Theatre Company) We gathered around André Gregory like children eagerly assembling around the librarian for story hour. André perched in a picture window inside Winsome Brown and Claude Arpels' fashionable Tribeca apartment. Behind him, the sun was setting over [...]
Amy Hempel & Matthew Zapruder : Lessons from the Writing Life
Poet Matthew Zapruder and Fiction writer Amy Hempel after their reading at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute (Photo by Ryan Williams courtesy the Juniper Summer Writing Institute) A few weeks ago I had a chance to meet writers Matthew Zapruder and Amy Hempel for the first time. The event [...]
Receipts, Email, Bread Tags, Styrofoam : Rachel Perry Welty Transforms Life’s Daily Clutter into Art
Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (receipts), 2011. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x 60 (Photo courtesy of the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery) Rachel Perry Welty, Lost in My Life (price tags), 2009. Pigmented ink print, edition of 3. 91.25 x [...]
Learning to Look : Whistler, Fireworks, and a New Way of Seeing
I'll never forget the first time I saw James McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Black and Gold. I was still in high school when I stumbled across the painting in an art history book and was immediately stunned. I had never seen night captured so perfectly in an artwork [...]