Category Archives: Uncategorized
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Grief and Grievance at the New Museum in New York
Grief and Grievance at the New Museum demonstrates the many ways that artist can address grief while collectively suggesting grievance, the resistance to injustice.
This entry was posted on July 8, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Uncategorized. -
Jacob Lawrence and “The American Struggle” at the Seattle Art Museum
Looking at this single image of the Boston Tea Party the no 3 panel in Jacob Lawrence’s “Struggle: From The History of the American People” we see how radical Lawrence is in every respect: composition, space, color, subject matter. In stark contrast to his well-known “Migration” series, the work from “Struggle” includes dynamic thrusting […]
This entry was posted on May 5, 2021 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Breathe! at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and several provocative new shows at the Henry Art Gallery
Provocative artists in several shows at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and the Henry Art Gallery
This entry was posted on April 14, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, ecology, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Port Townsend marks its history with Indigenous groups
Port Townsend reveals its Indigenous History
This entry was posted on April 6, 2021 and is filed under Art and Ecology, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, ecology, Indigenous History, Uncategorized. -
Selma Waldman More Important Than Ever in 2021
“Lust for power and territory is the same lust that kills man, women, children and the land itself” Selma Waldman 2002 What would Seattle’s deeply political artist Selma Waldman think of our current catastrophes? On a bitter winter day in January 2008, I accompanied Selma Waldman to the last demonstration that she attended […]
This entry was posted on February 26, 2021 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Contemporary Art, Uncategorized. -
Iran US Collaboration: Emotional Numbness: The Impact of War on the Human Psyche and Ecosystems
“Emotional Numbness, the Impact of War on the Human Psyche and Ecosystems” This exhibition is in Tehran, Iran, but available to see anywhere! It is a collaboration between US based group WEAD, Women Eco Artists Dialog and artists in Tehran, Iran. You can see two excellent online tours of the exhibition here […]
This entry was posted on December 27, 2020 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Ecology, Art and Politics Now, Art in War, ecology, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline at the Burke ( not yet open) and the River of Life
Not yet open at the Burke is Ray Troll’s Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline exhibition. More about the show in a minute, but meanwhile, I want to give a big hooray to the Paleo Nerd podcast that Ray and his friend David Strassman, a ventriloquest, host. Here is Ray’s own website also. The podcast is […]
This entry was posted on December 22, 2020 and is filed under Art and Ecology, ecology, Uncategorized. -
Marela Zacarias at Mad Art brings us the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Xochicalco
In case you are yearning for a trip to get away from our crazy election or now to celebrate it, go to Mad Art (325 Westlake Avenue N, open Thurs, Fri, Sat noon to 5 and by appointment necessary) Marela Zacarías brings us the Temple of the Feathered Serpent in Xochicalco, a Mesoamerican […]
This entry was posted on November 6, 2020 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Politics Now, Contemporary Art, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Na Chainkua Reindorf
Ghanian artist Na Chainkua Reindorf is showing at the Specialist Gallery (until November 21, by appointment) a series of seven stunning works, with the title “Come, Let Me Spoil Your Things” The artist is inviting us to meet members of an imaginary secret society. This is the first phase of a long term […]
This entry was posted on October 25, 2020 and is filed under Art and Activism, Art and Ecology, Art and Politics Now, Uncategorized, Women Artists. -
Women’s Suffrage and Women’s Suffering
The Center on Contemporary Art (COCA) WHAT STORY WOULD THE UNINTENDED BENEFICIARIES TELL (WSWUBT), which closes in two days, is a wonderful small selection of artists addressing the suffrage amendment and who was left out. The artists include Carletta Carrington Wilson with a selection from her incredible Letter to a Laundress series that I have […]
This entry was posted on October 22, 2020 and is filed under African American history, Art and Politics Now, art criticism, Black Art, Carletta Carrington Wilson, Feminism, Uncategorized. -
Maya Lin’s Confluence Revisited 2020
Revisiting Cape Disappointment and the Confluence Project 2020
This entry was posted on September 12, 2020 and is filed under a green future?, Art and Ecology, Uncategorized. -
Ling Chun Apostrophe S
Galleries are slowly reopening. Method Gallery has a wonderful new installation by Ling Chun. When I first saw it, I was confounded. Ling is a ceramic artist in her training, but what she does with ceramics is so innovative, that she must now be called a multimedia artist at the intersection of pop, modernism, and […]
This entry was posted on July 26, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
CHOP the Garden
July 18 I went back for another look at the site of CHOP and found it was a large garden in Cal Anderson Park sponsored by Black Star Farmers. They have grown a lot of vegetables all with volunteer help. When I was there they were rinsing kale leaves to donate to a community kitchen […]
This entry was posted on July 18, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
A Sunday Trip to the Olympic Sculpture Park
Taking a break from the heavy news and politics, we take an”expedition” every Sunday in Seattle. Last weekend we went to the Wooden Boat Center and went rowing. This Sunday we went to the Olympic Sculpture Park. Here is Beverly Pepper’s Persephone Unbound. 1999. “The abstract language of form that I have chosen has become […]
This entry was posted on July 13, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Occupying the Northwest African American Museum
The Colman School, site of the Northwest African American Museum, has been occupied since Juneteenth by Omari Tahir, Earl Debnam, and others to declare that they are the rightful owners of the property based on a purchase agreement and loan agreement from January 1998, a copy of which they provided to me. Tahir and Debnam […]
This entry was posted on July 7, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Capitol Hill Organized Protest
Capitol Hill Occupied ( now called Organized) Protest is evolving as I write, so this is simply a report that will have to be updated. Everyone heard about the tear gas confrontation from Sunday June 6-7 and the departure of the police from 10th precinct, the “zone” as it was called then. I went down […]
This entry was posted on June 20, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Intersections in the Chinatown International District: Dim Sum, Seafood and Black Lives Matter
Our unique family-owned businesses in the International District have already suffered from the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic because of the absurd ideas coming from DC. Then came willful acts of destruction following a protest May 29 not by peaceful protestors, but by outsiders. But the day after the destruction volunteers began to show […]
This entry was posted on June 18, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Seattle after George Floyd Murder: Protest, Anger, Marches, Occupation
We have had a 180 turn in mood in the last two weeks, as a result of the murder of George Floyd. I am now seeing the anger about racism and police violence leading to demands to defund the police, whereas before we were “all in this together” to stay home ( which of course […]
This entry was posted on June 17, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Covid 19 murals in Seattle: Ballard
This is the only series of photos that I didn’ t take myself. Ballard seems far from where I live. So I asked around and put together these images. Thanks to Jeff Hou and Sean Yale. But of course they are not in any particular sequence and Ballard seems to have the least online presence […]
This entry was posted on May 22, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
COVID 19 murals in Seattle: Pioneer Square
Pioneer Square has many many murals. I photographed a few of them and then discovered there is a walking tour which identifies a lot more of them. They are sponsored by the Alliance for Pioneer Square and Pioneer Square Business Improvement Association. In the case of the Globe Bookstore, the owner reached out to a […]
This entry was posted on May 22, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
COVID 19 mural art on Capital Hill May 2020
This is an introductory essay on the mural art in Seattle that is filling the boarded up windows of so many stores. I need to do a lot more research on the artists and the sponsors, but here I will simply post the murals I saw yesterday. I spoke with one artist Tara Velan who […]
This entry was posted on May 10, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
The New Deal Era and Today: Some comparisons
Recently references to the New Deal programs that provided federal assistance to painters, photographers ( Dorothea Lange being the most famous), and theater ( the shut down of Hallie Flanigan’s radical Theater Program), abound in our press these days, as the Corona Virus devastates the arts and the creative sphere. Even the conservative commentator David […]
This entry was posted on May 8, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
Some Public Art in the Central District: Jimi Hendrix Park and the Shadow Wall
Scott Murase with Murase Associates designed the recently completed Shadow Wall sculpture in the Jimi Hendrix Park. The same firm beautifully designed the whole park to loosely suggest a guitar. From the entrance at 2400 S Massachusetts Ave, the Hendrix signature on the wall leads us on a purple (now faded to blue) swirling […]
This entry was posted on April 25, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
“Climate Change Alert through Arctic Aesthetics” by Jean Bundy, Art Critic based in Anchorage Alaska
This paper was presented in the International Art Critics Association session at the College Art Association February 2020 Jean Bundy is the Climate Change Envoy for AICA-INTERNATIONAL Introduction In the Eighteenth Century Captain Cook era, when exploration and desired acquisition of the Pacific Northwest was mapped and illustrated, it became evident that these locations had […]
This entry was posted on March 19, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized. -
“Between Bodies”
Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington Oct 27, 2018 – Apr 28, 2019 The eight artists in “Between Bodies” take us from the air, to the minerals deep in the earth, the untamed rivers, the smoking forest, and finally to the sounds and microorganisms of the deep sea. They explore metaphors of sexual transformation, intraspecies […]
This entry was posted on March 14, 2020 and is filed under Uncategorized.
