This art gallery is at the Post Office. Our P.O. box is one of the grey ones you can see behind the pillars. If you need to buy art for your home or as a gift, you come here or you go to one of the many art markets around town. But at least in… Continue reading Congostyle art gallery
I first discovered Pierrot Men’s work in Fianarantsoa, when I was in Madagascar in 2001 and he blew me away. Perhaps because he caught in images that were sometimes bleak, the breadth of my experience, an experience I was unable to share or process at the time. I was traveling alone and intensely occupied with… Continue reading Pierrot Men
The New Yorker this week profiled Julie Mehretu, in the fantastic article “Big Art, Big Money” by Calvin Tomkins. The article is focused around her recent $5 million commission by Goldman Sachs, and they touch on the role the institution played in the recent financial crisis. Julie Mehretu paints precisely defined abstract shapes in bright… Continue reading Julie Mehretu
This is something I have been thinking about constantly the past month. “Creative” is a term that immediately gets associated with artistic things, and it has a connotation of being craftsy, and maybe a bit trivial. You’re creative if you like switching fonts, if you arrange flowers, if you pay attention to the appearance of… Continue reading being creative
I found out about Han Han a while ago and I just love him. You can read about him here, in the Time’s article by Simon Elegant, but the article is frankly quite superficial, and the Wikipedia entry is not much better. The best article I read about Han Han was from a Chinese website,… Continue reading Han Han
3 findings tonight (late) 1) Crossing Delancey …a surprise of a movie about a microcosm of the New York Jewish community, and a meditation on singlehood and finding love. A 33-year old single girl–happy, successful, loving her life in the literary circles of the city–reluctantly finds herself in the talons of a well-meaning matchmaker who… Continue reading Evening of findings
I found out (thanks to The Writer’s Almanac) that today is Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s birthday. He’s one of my favorite authors and The Little Prince is, bar none, my favorite book. I carry it with me everywhere I go and read it many times each year. The Little Prince is singlehandedly responsible for my ability… Continue reading happy birthday, mon prince
This is a book by Sony Labou Tansi, a very famous Congolese writer. If you want to read what Congo/DRC are like like from the very mouth of one of their native sons, pick this book up, it’s powerful and heartbreakingly well written. I don’t have any idea how it translates, it would be… Continue reading The Antipeople
Here’s the link to subscribe to what I believe Garrison Keillor is truly great for: the daily writer’s almanac. It’s a cocktail of beautiful poems, sprinkled with literary tidbits and history. One of those daily emails truly worth getting. I always love hearing the almanac when I’m in the US but it’s a very short… Continue reading yet still he clings
Found this really interesting article about Rose McGowan. She’s utterly fascinating, and her creativity in living her own life is something I relate to. She grew up in Italy (in the Children of God cult, same as the Phoenix family) and moved to the US after her formative years. Her choices, and reactions were so… Continue reading Rose McGowan
I just found out tonight that one of my favorite artists, Dan Eldon went to PCC in 1988! How cool is that? You should all read his biography. This guy is a real inspiration. He grew up in Kenya, pursued his schooling all over the US and London (after PCC he went to UCLA, Iowa… Continue reading Dan Eldon (former PCC student, holla!)
This is a lovely movie about Séraphine de Senlis, an extremely talented but not very well known (not as well known as Picasso or Douanier Rousseau who were discovered by the same art dealer as her) French painter who died in 1942. The movie is quiet enough to give you space to process what is… Continue reading Séraphine
I still get some questions about Congostyle, the Zein-coined term for creative ghettoness. here’s a perfect story that happened not ten minutes ago. My friend and I were discussing how to create cheap and cool bookends for a bookcase. I came up with the idea of decorated bricks or cinder-blocks. I was going to go… Continue reading Congostyle bookends
This is a fantastic portrait by my good friend Stef, an amazing, talented artist. This portrait is one of my favorites lately, the face is so kind, the eyes so soulful. I love everything about it. The gentleness, the medium, the tones. Even though the colors are cool, it is such a warm portrait, and… Continue reading soul
I almost wish I had never read this article. It is heart-breaking that people would have no time for beauty. Especially something as celestial as violin music, which by some miracle, made it to this dreary world. read on..at your own peril… Joshua Bell plays incognito in Washington DC metro.
Do you ever feel like you want to break free from your life, your body, gravity? Break this shell, and just soar? That’s what ties me to writing in moments when I write what I feel, when it spills out of me to just express itself. It’s why art is so important, because it communicates,… Continue reading moments of beauty
Such a feast of blue. And the blue tiles get darker as you rise. A pleasure for the eyes…what an experience! Through glass, the aquarium effect is complete. Imagine you’re a fish!
Even the door looks like something living, something organic, waiting to take on a life of its own.
One of the Gaudi houses in Barcelona:
I love this poem by Roger White, about visiting the grave of Shoghi Effendi in London. Arnos Grove is the name of the Tube stop at the end of the Piccadilly line where you get off to go to the cemetery. I was just there a few weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it.… Continue reading Arnos Grove
The Three-Legged Duck 