January Bibliography

At the end of each month, I’ll share a short list of links to articles, blogs, images, or videos I’ve come across online and think you might enjoy as well. This month, I was fascinated by the idea of why and where artists create. 

The fireplace in Bourgeois' front sitting room. The telephone numbers on the wall are in her own hand (NICHOLAS CALCOTT) via The Telegraph

Starting this Summer you can tour the home where Louise Bourgeois lived and worked in New York:

"A sense that at any moment Bourgeois might walk through the door is heightened by the atmosphere of bohemian dilapidation: Surely this place is in no shape to be seen by anyone other than its owner. Crude patchwork testifies to the cave-in of a plaster ceiling. A two-burner gas hot plate that fills in for a stove and an ancient television that stands next to a small metal folding chair further the impression of a home not ready to receive company. “I’m using the house,” she told a visitor, when she was in her mid-70s. “The house is not using me.”

I loved reading this insightful article about the creative mind - Why So Many Artists are Highly Sensitive People:

"To highly sensitive people, as Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Pearl S. Buck suggested, the world may appear to be more colorful, dramatic, tragic, and beautiful. Sensitive people often pick up on the little things in the environment that others miss, see patterns where others see randomness, and find meaning and metaphor in the minutiae of everyday life. It’s no wonder this type of personality would be driven to creative expression"

The Wander Society from Keri Smith on Vimeo.

Keri Smith's newest book looks at the Wander Society

"Within these pages, you’ll find the results of Smith’s research: A guide to the Wander Society, a secretive group that holds up the act of wandering, or unplanned exploring, as a way of life. You’ll learn about the group’s mysterious origins, meet fellow wanderers through time, discover how wandering feeds the creative mind, and learn how to best practice the art of wandering, should you choose to accept the mission."

April Bibliography

At the end of each month, I’ll share a short list of links to articles, blogs, images, or videos I’ve come across online and think you might enjoy as well. This month, I was fascinated by the idea of art in unexpected places or forms.

No Longer Art - A torn canvas and a broken Jeff Koons sculpture.

The Salvage Art Institute brings together works of "total loss art" and exhibits them to the public:

"No Longer Art: Salvage Art Institute raises fundamental questions about who determines the value of art. Typically the purview of art critics, museum curators, gallerists, and art collectors, the cultural valuation of art can be mysterious terrain. Enter insurance companies—with their actuaries and metrics—to flatten the score and determine a painting isn’t even worth the canvas it’s painted on. Artists do not often have a say in the “total loss” status of their own work." 

Palettes of Edgar Degas, Frida Kahlo and Henri Matisse. Photos by Matthias Schaller.

Matthias Schaller's series of photographs, Das Meisterstück, examines the artist's palette as "an indirect portrait of the artist and the artist's technique." The palettes are fascinating and are immediately recognizable as belonging to the artists who used them. They are as, Schaller describes them, "the unconscious painting, or the painting before the painting."

IXXI is a Dutch design company that will take just about any image - your own, or one from their catalog of images - and turn it into a flexible collage of tiles that you can install anywhere in your home. What I absolutely love is that they have an entire image bank of works of art from museums around the world. So, if you want a Van Gogh in your kitchen, or a Vermeer in your dining room, you can have one.

March Bibliography

At the end of each month, I’ll share a short list of links to articles, blogs, images, or videos I’ve come across online and think you might enjoy as well. This month, I've also included some of my favorites from Contemporary Art Month.

Jenelle Esparza's installation at Seven Mintues in Heaven on March 7

I loved this piece by Holland Cotter in the New York Times. It reminded me of how it feels every time I get to see works of in art in person, after having studied them in books and online. I've always felt this -- "Paintings are personal documents, their surfaces as readable as diary entries."

Louie Chavez's installation at Seven Mintues in Heaven on March 7

It was really moving to listen to Rick Abath speak for the first time about having been one of the guards on duty the night of the theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: 

"More than anything else I'm angry about it. I don't want to be remembered for this alone. I'd like to be remembered for the good things I've done. I'm a husband, a father of two really cool kids, but they're saying it's half a billion worth of artwork now. And ultimately I'm the one who made the decision to buzz them in."

Chris Montoya, The Continuation of Ideals at Silkworm Studio and Gallery on 2nd Saturday in March

Watch artists respond to works of art in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Season One of The Artist Project. 

Here's a short documentary about Surrealist, Leonora Carrington, whose fantastic, symbolic paintings are some of my favorites. 

Yenifer Gavina, Heart at R Gallery on 2nd Saturday in March

February Bibliography

This past weekend was the On and Off Fredericksburg Road Studio Tour. On Saturday, I made my way to a few studio spaces and met some fascinating artists. It’s such a treat to see where artists create, so this event is a favorite of mine, especially since its right in my neighborhood. The Rivard Report sums up the event in this piece: Better than Ever: On and Off Fred Studio Tour. (Bonus points if you can spot me in one of the photos). 

If you were out this weekend, you may have purchased some art work, or maybe you thought about buying something, but weren’t sure. There are so many opportunties to purchase original art in San Antonio each month, and with Contemporary Art Month coming up, I thought this article, 4 Ideas for Finding More Meaningful Art, had some great ideas to keep in mind during your next visit to a local gallery or open studio night.  

And finally, I have to say that I am not a fan of the term “selfie,” and in certain contexts am annoyed by them. I do, however, get how they are transforming the way we see ourselves and each other. Jerry Saltz's article, At Arm's Length: A History of the Selfie, was quite insightful and worth a read:

"Selfies come from all of us; they are a folk art that is already expanding the language and lexicon of photography. Selfies are a photography of modern life—not that academics or curators are paying much attention to them. They will, though: In a hundred years, the mass of selfies will be an incredible record of the fine details of everyday life." 

Speaking of "selfies," check out Gravelmouth Gallery's CAM event, Shoot Yourself. 

At the end of each month, I’ll share a short list of links to articles, blogs, images, or videos I’ve come across online and think you might enjoy as well.