Essay

Randomly opening Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, takes me to a page with an image of an asymmetrical quilt overflowing with indigo, magenta and crimson polyester squares stacked…

Over October 26 – November 1, I visited New York to trudge through an early snowstorm (and the resulting slush and sludge) to see a round of recently opened gallery…

Now with two art fairs under my belt, not only does it really hurts when I sit down, but I have also become the world’s leading authority on ALL THINGS…

“In the war, things were in terrible turmoil. What I had learned at the academy was of no use to me and the useful new ideas were still unready… Everything…

Small Texas towns are easy to stereotype, and often, those generalizations prove themselves to be true.  Conservative politics, high school football, and abundant red meat are just a few that…

Big cities with vibrant art scenes have big art fairs, right? Sure. So it stands to reason that Houston, home of lots of great art, should have one as well.…

  Until Thursday September 15, I had never once been to an art fair.  I find this astonishing since I am 55.  I once had a piece in an art…

So you wanna be an artist. A successful artist. Then these are some rules to live by. Granted, artists are good at breaking rules (and should), and you can take…

When it comes to art, using the word ‘crisis’ is always a massive overstatement. Between the crises in painting, criticism, and photography you’d think that art was in some real…

Patience, in the traditional sense, is a virtue I’m not fortunate enough to possess. So much so that as a child I was set down and made to build model…

Its time to pour yourself a cocktail, slather on some sunscreen, and break out that worn copy of Valley Of The Dolls. The art world, having lovingly adopted the academic…

In my younger days, between my divorce in 1985 and my return from Baltimore in 2004, I moved many, many a time.  Each time I moved, I would cull through…

R.I.P. Cy Twombly (1928-2011) Born in Lexington, Virginia in 1928, Twombly actively distanced himself from the major movements of 20th-century art, both stylistically and geographically. For decades, both critics and…

Who would’ve thought I’d ever be shilling for Texas, with a glass half-full at that? But having recently spent some time back in The Bayou City that’s exactly what I’m…

‘Tis the season to hand out financial advice. There isn’t a rock in existence under which we could live and not hear about the dismal state of the economy, how…

Artists have a hard time organizing. We don’t have a union to bust, don’t have annual conferences, and it’s not all that shocking. Take a bunch of  individualistic, over-worked, buck-the-system…

This month’s (April 2011) Artforum features a book review by Joachim Pissaro and David Carrier on a new collection of essays edited by Alexis L. Boylan entitled Thomas Kinkade: The…

Director Tim Skousen has just released his documentary “Zero Percent” at the Dallas Film Festival. It spotlights a higher education program within the maximum security prison Sing Sing called Hudson…

I took a little hiatus from writing about art because I needed to sort out some thoughts. I have not been visiting gallery shows or museums recently because I have…

When I officially embarked upon YESQUEST 2011 (Where I’d say Yes! to everything), I just didn’t think…well, I just didn’t think. As I’ve spent the last few years in front…