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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Greatest Hits
The Sunday Poem : Caitlin Doyle
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? [...]
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 [...]
A Line Made By Flooding – Artist Eve Mosher: “I Never Wanted to Be Right”
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Sunday Poem : James Arthur
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 [...]
Liquor, Perfume, Hair: Joan Wickersham Talks with Painter Julia Jacquette
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The Sunday Poem: Natalie Diaz
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 [...]
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 [...]
Christian Marclay’s The Clock: Does the 24-Hour Artwork Live Up to the Hype?
Stills from The Clock by Christian Marclay (Photo courtesy arkitipintel.com) (NOTE: This review is from the summer of 2012. Marclay's The Clock is on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City through January 21, 2013, with a special 24-hour screening on New Year's [...]
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 [...]