Written from Seattle, these essays pursue ideas and enthusiasms about visual art, the built environment, and landscape. They issue from close observation and description, and they coalesce around intersections and associations.
“America’s identity lies in its open spaces, the space of possibility, but also of speed, movement, and unobstructed will.” – Rebecca Solnit, “The Desert: Scapeland,” As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender, and Art, page 87 I grew up mostly ignorant of football. My Dad would listen to it on the radio occasionally,… Read more »
Crows are numerous and newsworthy in Seattle. Widely published research from University of Washington wildlife biologist John Marzluff demonstrates the social birds remembering human faces and teaching other crows to recognize these people. Dr. Marzluff’s work builds on studies that show crows as capable of manipulating tools. Seattle artist Buster Simpson has found in the… Read more »
Last week, a new pope was selected from among his cardinal colleagues. He is the first Jesuit to assume the position, the first pope from Latin America, and the first to choose Francis as his papal name. Saint Francis, namesake to former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, is something of an anomaly in the… Read more »
At the Wright Exhibition Space in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, I recently stood in front of a large painting by Andy Warhol, Rorschach, from 1984. I had seen it before in the double-height gallery of the Seattle Art Museum, but in this sparely curated space, the piece took on a new resonance. Part of… Read more »
In November, Bank of America launched a virtual exhibition, sometimes accessible from the homepage of its website, called Bearing Witness: Documentary Photography of the 1930s. Composed of works from the Bank of America Collection, the show highlights American photography made during the Great Depression. The images present both rural and urban scenes. Figures, many of… Read more »
Just a few blocks from the nearby summer dahlia stand I frequent is a modest house with thin red and grey bricks, taupe siding, and a recessed front door. It would be unremarkable except for its extraordinary front garden. Its owners have surrendered conventional green grass to an insurrection of rosebushes. They grow without rhyme or… Read more »
A few weeks back, I heard a geographer speak as part of a panel about women and the urban environment. She said she’s often asked about the nature of her discipline. In response, she said she talks about thinking about space as structuring human relationships. She talks about how the city has a geography, home has… Read more »
Paris, in April, was teeming with people: spring break tourists queuing up to see the famous sights and the politically passionate, or perhaps just paid, papering its telephone poles with images of and messages from politicians who would meet their fates in the elections just after we left. The elegant Museé de la Chasse et… Read more »
Last month at the Reykjavik Art Museum in Iceland, I saw exhibitions devoted to the careers of two Spanish artists: Antoni Tàpies and Santiago Sierra. Divided by two generations and chosen mediums and subjects, Tàpies and Sierra nonetheless share a basic preoccupation with human bodies. Before he passed away earlier this year, Tàpies built up layers… Read more »
Whatever the weather, spring officially begins today, March 20th. Heeding the impending day, I hastened to finish Adam Gopnik’s most recent book, Winter: Five Windows on the Season, before the vernal equinox heralded the new season and winter melted away. In the last months, Gopnik has been a constant companion. I was charmed by his 2001… Read more »