While visiting Boston, Massachusetts in July, 2023, I visited the city’s Museum of Fine Art (MFA). Strolling through the museum’s Art of the Americas wing I happened upon the Artists of African Descent gallery. I was puzzled by an artwork I found there, an acrylic portrait painting created in the red, black, and green colors favored by black nationalists and…
A public presentation about a friendly demon might sound suspect enough, but when you hear that an art museum sponsored a performance art piece about an affable demon, you might want to pay attention. Such is the case with the Walker Art Center in Minnesota. On August 5, 2023 it presented artist Tamar Ettun’s “demon summoning” performance piece, Lilit the…
This commentary is a somewhat unusual take on the timelessness of American folk music, with its focus being a young Virginian named Oliver Anthony, a former factory worker who became a farmer that lives off grid, but now hopes to make a living as a country folk singer. On Aug. 8, 2023, Anthony released his song Rich Men North Of…
On July 26, 2023, Randy Meisner, a founding member of the American soft rock band the Eagles, succumbed to COPD, otherwise known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He died at the age of 77. Gone to join the great majority after leaving his mark on contemporary music, he will be missed. This will not be a conventual obituary, because frankly…
In the Vatican City State on June 23, 2023, beneath Michelangelo’s High Renaissance mural in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Francis addressed some 200 invited artists and creative types. One attendee was Andres Serrano—maker of the infamous Piss Christ photograph and other sacrilegious images. I’m not writing this essay as a practicing Catholic, but as a working artist. The Pontiff’s assembly…
On June 14, 2023, two women from the eco-extremist group Återställ Våtmarker (Restore Wetlands), raided the National Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. They attacked Le Jardin de l’artiste à Giverny (The artist’s garden at Giverny), a painting created in 1900 by the French Impressionist Claude Monet. The two vandals, a 28-year-old nurse and a 25-year-old nursing student, wore white T-shirts emblazoned…
One this day, June 17, 1775, American patriots fought the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts against the Red Coat troops of the British Empire. The battle took place during the Siege of Boston. To mark that occasion, allow me to direct you to the website of the Museum of the American Revolution, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its special exhibition,…
Photographer Lynn Goldsmith’s 1981 black and white photo of Prince was made just as the talented young singer-songwriter-musician was on his way to super stardom. Goldsmith’s portrait captured a moment in time with the genre-defying musician. She caught the soulfulness of the man on film. On May 18, 2023 the Supreme Court issued a momentous smackdown to the ghost of…
