Culture

Alejandro Santiago’s “2501 Migrantes” in Oaxaca
Several years ago the Mexican artist Alejandro Santiago began sculpting 2500 not-quite-life-sized human figures out of clay. Hewn in part with a machete and daubed in the colors of peasants’ clothing, the crude but ingeniously expressive figures are lifelike both in their collectivity and their subdued individuality. They gaze at you in a way that many more […]

¡Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Today in Montreal
With Fidel Castro’s recent resignation announcement, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts ¡Cuba! Art and History from 1868 to Today couldn’t come at a more interesting time. The United States imposed embargo on Cuba in 1963 cut off US-Cuba political relations and strained even the ones on a more personal level. Canada has been more accepting to the […]

DOGWOOD DAZE
My color for 2007? A glorious red informed with brown, what the 1960s Sherwin-Williams catalog would have termed “Autumn Red.” Not that it signified for me the end of summer or the onset of winter. No, it is a glorious burnt red, older and more cautious than brilliant scarlet, richer and more alive than dull […]

The Only Amazing Manga Museum in the World 2021
Kyoto Manga Museum, famed for its geisha girls and global warming protocol, is also home to the only museum catering to manga, i.e. Japanese comics of wide-eyed heroes and heroines. The Kyoto International Manga Museum opened in November 2006 in a refurbished primary school and houses approximately 200,000 manga books and assorted historical items. On any given […]

Richard Russo: Seriously Funny 2021
On Wednesday September 17th Seattle Arts and Lectures kicked off its 2008-2009 season with a lecture on humor by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo. Humor- it seemed an odd topic to me mainly because most of the aspects I remembered about Russo’s novel Empire Falls were dark in nature. The book explored characters dealing with […]

Crazy 4 Cult: Art and Cult Films in Perfect Harmony.
Gallery1988 art in LA is currently showing some of the hippest and cutting-edge interpretations of cult films in their latest exhibition: “Crazy 4 Cult: This time its personal”. Over 100 up and coming artists have produced works for the show that has been a massive success and continues until September 12th. At the Opening Party on […]

Oddly Elegant: An Odd But Elegant Process become so Amazing 2021
Oddly Elegant: After brewing a cup of tea, we hardly even consider the possibilities of a used tea bag before we toss it in the trash. In general, little thought is given to what we discard and any alternate uses it may posses. Although a majority of us don’t ponder prior to tossing, one exemplary […]

Aliza Shvarts: Ms. Carry Art From a new amazing Perspective view 2021
How would you feel about viewing Aliza Shvarts’ newest artistic creation? It’s a mixture of performance art, language arts and visual art; in this work she artificially inseminated herself and forced miscarriages upon herself, with abortifacient medication, not once –not twice; how about as many times in nine-months as she could following the following procedure. […]

A Brief Evolutionary and Memorable History of John Waters 2021
“When I was a young, ‘art’ meant dirty.”—John Waters John Waters is a man of many hats. Well, I have never seen John Waters in a hat, so perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that John Waters is a man of many coats. There is the special coat he used to steal records […]

Art John Updike An Memorable Artist Who Loves Art 2020
Let’s be honest, John Updike is intimidating art. He is an author who can only be described as prolific; one who drew an impressive crowd at Benaroya Hall in what is often described as one of the most literate cities in America. Since his early success in the 1950s, he has continued to add to […]