Art

Paul McIntyre, untitled

As I have little to add to the vast literature surrounding this holiday, I can only recommend one of my favorites: Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory.” His own reading of this short story used to be a staple this time of year on Minnesota Public Radio. I have no idea why they’ve departed from playing it, but here is a link to a 2006 This American Life episode that includes a tear-defying excerpt: Episode 255 (more…)

Marie Zhuikov, “Buddy, Winter 2012”

Should I infer from the lack of submissions this week that there is a lack of empathy in our world at the moment, or merely accept that the concept is a difficult one to represent? Being prone to hyperbole, I’m going with the former assumption, while hoping that a more general theme next week will boost contributions. Let’s go with “holidays.” (more…)

Mary K. Tennis, “Steve, Cranes”

It’s easy to take pristine air for granted while living in this Arcadian spot, but an alarming study of phytoplankton from the University of Leicester posited this week that rising carbon emissions could deplete the planet of breathable air. This brought starkly to mind the homophone err, and deepened my belief that true change can only occur from the ground, up — or in this case, from the micro-organismic. (more…)

Erin Naughton-Garrison, “Drag Queen Baby Shower Buffet”

Nice. I was expecting perfectly-plated smart phone grabs from local restaurants, and instead received a group of highly original interpretations on this week’s theme. Erin’s da Vinciesque tableau was especially arresting, and I appreciated the subtext of food as a tradition we convey along generations. Staying with the elemental, next week’s theme will be “air.” (more…)

Karen Owsley Nease, “Selling Mom’s Car”

There is a perverse fullness in loss. Loss propelled me here. It informs my need to make art. It makes space for the unexpected to grow. Atul Gawande’s recent book “Being Mortal” describes “the chasm of perspective between those who have to contend with life’s fragility and those who don’t.” Loss widens our apertures to see farther down narrow, well-worn paths. It opens us to risk, and to more keenly-felt joys. (more…)

Tyler Johnson, untitled

Bliss is seldom of an epiphanic nature; it often just slowly suffuses us, when after years or moments prior we’d barely thought it possible that matters could just placidly align. But a surfeit of joy can be just as intolerable as an abundance of grief. Neither can be sustained, and each will evanesce, then quietly, someday, return. (more…)

Hugh Reitan, untitled

Limbs (of trees) stripped near to bare, firewood cribbed, quilts at hand, larders stocked. This is the month that Maslow’s hierarchy seems tangibly real, unless you’re an artist and thus inclined to invert the pyramid. Many diverse takes this week, despite my dread that a theme so prospectively barren would go unchallenged. Credit a strain of Scandanavian fatalism? Anyhow, thanks. (more…)

Brian Barber, “John Barber: Service station owner, school bus driver, Mayor, Parnell, MO”

This week’s theme offers the opportunity for a p.s.a.: have prints made of the images you’re making now, or we might not have the kinds of memories shown here. Digital media storage changes so quickly that having our memories in tangible form may vanish. Anyone still have a floppy drive on their pc, or a pc for that matter? (more…)

Brian Barber, “Bandit”

Black and white photography is most often anything but. Degrees of tone exist in a broad spectrum within what we reductively deem either/or. I’ve argued before that its use as an aesthetic device is antiquarian, retrogressive- that the medium has grown past the limitation, yet there remains an appeal in seeing images pared to their essence, without the ersatz mediation of hdr and hyper-saturation. (more…)

Paul McIntyre, untitled

The idea of “coming home” propels nearly all our endeavors, knowing we are tethered to other people, to familiar, comforting things. For anyone lacking a stable, sane place, or those exiled by circumstance, the capacity to venture is stunted while the desire to find moorings never leaves us. Emily Norton’s “Family Motto” (below) states well this simple, not easily-attained aspiration. (more…)