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Just Looking
A Critic’s Eye on New England Art
Take a look at art in New England with Edgar Allen Beem. Read his recent interview on contemporary art in New England with the Abbeville Manual of Style.
He's been art critic for the Portland Independent, art critic and feature writer for Maine Times, and now is a freelance writer for Yankee, Down East, Boston Globe Magazine, The Forecaster, and Photo District News.
He's the author of Maine Art Now (1990) and Maine: The Spirit of America (2000). In 1988, he won the Manufacturers Hanover Art/World Award for Distinguished Newspaper Art Criticism for his coverage of the 1987 auction sale of Vincent Van Gogh's Irises.
Ed says, "My credo as an arts writer has long been: 'The work of art is the search for meaning.' I believe art is not only a form of personal expression but also a form of inquiry, every bit as much a quest for truth as scientific research."
Ed Beem's newest book, Backyard Maine: Local Essays, has just been published by Tilbury House, Publishers, of Gardiner, Maine. It's not about the meaning of art; it's about the meaning of family, community, and life in general.
Rockstone and Bootheel @ Real Art Ways
Celebrating West Indian Art in Hartford
November 20, 2009 at 9:22 AM | Post a Comment
Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, has organized a multimedia celebration of contemporary West Indian culture that includes videos, films, live music, readings, and a wide ranging art exhibition. Entitled Rockstone and Bootheel: Contemporary West Indian Art, the exhibition (through March 14) was curated by Real Art Ways director of visual arts Kristina Newman-Scott and arts consultant Yona Backer, both natives of Jamaica. Together they have assembled a lively representative selection of edgy art from the English-speaking islands of the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad & Tobago.
25 Cent Children's Classics
Little Golden Books at the Carle Museum
November 13, 2009 at 7:55 AM | Post a Comment
What is the best-selling children's book of all-time? My first guess would have been The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. My second guess would have been The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. But in fact, the best-selling children's book of all time is The Poky Little Puppy written by Janette Sebring Lowrey and illustrated by Gustav Tenggren. Apparently, while the literary world was busy elsewhere, The Poky Little Puppy has sold some 15 million copies since it was first published in 1942. The timeless simplicity, charm, sincerity, and character building merits of this unprepossessing little picture book about a curious puppy who likes to dig holes under the fence and go exploring has made it a mass market classic.
Everything Old Is New Again
Photocopies @ Dartmouth, Antiqued Photos @ UNE
November 6, 2009 at 8:16 AM | Post a Comment
Art and technology tend to have a love-hate relationship. Some artists embrace the latest technologies as new tools with which to create. Other artists react against new technologies, embracing instead traditional even antique mediums. Examples of both impulses can currently be seen in a pair of remote and unrelated exhibitions that nonetheless beg to be considered together.
Art at Colby
50 Years on the Walls and on the Page
October 30, 2009 at 2:42 PM | Post a Comment
The Colby College Museum of Art is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an exhibition and a book, both entitled Art at Colby. The exhibition runs through February 21, 2010, but it is the book that I would like to call your attention to here. A book is the second life of art, so while not many readers will make it to the Waterville, Maine, college between now and February, Art at Colby ($50 hardcover) is an exhibition you can hold in your hand for years to come.
Williams Museum Goes Over Niagara Falls
William Morris Hunt and Alec Soth on Honeymoon
October 23, 2009 at 8:37 AM | Post a Comment
The Williams College Museum of Art has mounted a series of late fall exhibitions that celebrate and provide context for its 1878 William Morris Hunt masterpiece "Niagara Falls," a symphonic oil of one of America's iconic landscapes. Hunt (1824-1879) was a Vermont native who became a celebrated Boston portrait and landscape painter.
