Trust Artists To Provide
"A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience.." -Mark Rothko
Art provides sanctuary, redemption, transformation, and healing. Art is essential. We can make our own art or bask in the creations of other artists—either way, we’re better for it.
In the past two weeks, we traveled to Houston and San Antonio to get closer to art and the people and places who make it and value it. We visited the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Menil Collection, and the Rothko Chapel, all in Houston, followed by a visit to the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio.
At the Contemporary, we were fortunate to see Ming Smith’s “Feeling the Future” exhibit before it closed on Oct 1. Her work leaves a mark! I was also excited to see the large painting, “Eden Revisited,” by Helen Frankenthaler in San Antonio.
Three of My Recent Paintings
I’ve been painting almost every day for three months. I’m aware of some improvement, but I don’t share my pieces here because they are good. I share them because it’s good to paint. In fact, it feels so good that I want to encourage you to take up a new art or craft and make things by hand again.
Moral Vacancy Is An Acute Problem In America
David Brooks recently published an article called “How America Got Mean," in The Atlantic. He argues:
We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration. Our society has become one in which people feel licensed to give their selfishness free rein.
He concludes:
A culture that leaves people morally naked and alone leaves them without the skills to be decent to one another.
Selflessness is better than selfishness and the nation is running low on this precious resource. What if we consciously work to raise the level and frequency of kindness in our culture? Of course, there are countless obstacles in the way, but we can hurdle them when we train ourselves to do that.
Empires Fail Before They Fall
W. E. B. Du Bois predicted that, unless the United States met its obligations to the dignity and equality of all its citizens and ended its enthrallment to corporations, American democracy would fail.
If it is going to use this power to force the world into color prejudice and race antagonism; if it is going to use it to manufacture millionaires, increase the rule of wealth, and break down democratic government everywhere; if it is going increasingly to stand for reaction, fascism, white supremacy and imperialism; if it is going to promote war and not peace; then America will go the way of the Roman Empire.
-via Jill Lepore in The New Yorker
Lagniappe
PBS is currently airing “Becoming Frida,” a three-part documentary about the life and work of the legendary Mexican artist. I LOVE Frida!
See this new photoset from San Antonio. SATX is an artsy, gritty, historic, architecturally significant city inhabited by lots of friendly people.
This we know: Artists have a harder and harder time making a living today.
I just opened an account on Teach:able. Now it’s time to create my first course on their platform.
John Mellencamp has written a beautiful new song about homelessness in America. The song is the second track on his new album, Orpheus Descending.
“For many years, Trump has hidden in plain sight—he makes no effort to conceal his bigotries, his lawlessness, his will to authoritarian power; to the contrary, he advertises it, and, most disturbing of all, this deepens his appeal.” -David Remnick in The New Yorker
Thanks for being here now,
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