Posts Tagged ‘The Writer’s Brush’
FREDERIC TUTEN FOUND A NEW JOY
“At this time of my life–someone would say, the winter of my life, although I don’t feel cold,” Frederic Tuten, novelist, essayist, short story writer, and art critic, tells of finding a new joy in painting. “Practically no day passes where I’m not either writing and painting or painting and writing, whichever comes first in…
Read MoreZELDA’S LEGACY
On March 10, 1948, at 48, Zelda Fitzgerald, widow of F. Scott, died in a fire in a locked hospital room during the last of her many confinements for chronic mental illness. Variously diagnosed as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, at least one biographer asserts that a major objective of her treatment was to restore her…
Read MoreMY CONTRIBUTION TO THE LATEST INTERFACES ISSUE
Voilá, the latest issue of INTERFACES, internationally renowned journal of text and image and my contribution to it–an extended essay on writer and conceptual artist Roberta Allen along with an on-camera interview with her in 2021. Note this is not the brief commentary previously posted but an expanded discussion of the prolific author Allen and her…
Read MoreRoberta Allen: “Language is the bridge…”
“Language is the bridge…” Roberta Allen began making and exhibiting her conceptual art more than a half century ago, before she came to author eight books and more than 200 works of short fiction. Indeed, as she explains in this 2021 interview, her earliest writing was about her art. Allen had her first solo exhibition…
Read MoreFernando del Paso: “I dream that I paint, and I paint the dream.”
With the 2015 award of the Cervantes Prize, Fernando del Paso’s place among the greatest of Spanish literary figures was cemented. Acclaimed as both novelist and essayist, the Surrealist-influenced del Paso was also an internationally exhibited artist whose work, both in ink and paint, offers precisely rendered, dream-like images that juxtapose and merge the real and the fantastic.
Read MoreHow Peter Sacks Joined the Greats
“Paint seems more embedded in the cosmos than language.” The Poet Picked Up a Paintbrush You are about to witness a historic moment. A little more than twenty years ago, Peter Sacks, a successful poet and Harvard professor, decided to pick up a paintbrush for the first time. Today, hailed internationally, his work is…
Read MoreAmiri Baraka: “Politics is to protect truth and beauty”
“Politics is to protect truth and beauty.” Amiri Baraka, famed leader of the Black Arts Movement, was a poet, playwright, jazz critic, and actor. He was also a notorious political revolutionary who did not cease protesting despite arrests and beatings by the Newark police and struggling to install an honest government that would respond to…
Read MoreEnjoy the latest issue of INTERFACES
Voilá, the latest issue of INTERFACES, internationally renowned journal of text and image. This issue focuses on images and memories, with fascinating discussions ranging from fiction that uses photographs with its text, to Ken Burns’ recontextualizing photojournalism in his Vietnam War documentary and, as an added treat, my on-camera interview with Jules Feiffer, the brilliant…
Read MoreSusan Minot Paints Everything, Everywhere
“I like to say ‘I write,’ or ‘I paint,’ and not ‘I am an anything.” The award-winning writer of novels, short stories, screenplays, and poems, Susan Minot says she grew up in a family in which everyone always had something before them to do with their hands. It is a habit that has stayed with…
Read MoreLawrence Ferlinghetti is turning 100!
Legendary poet, artist, publisher and social activist Lawrence Ferlinghetti will celebrate his 100th birthday on March 24. My on-camera interview with him in 2001 has been edited into a four minute homage by Michelle Memran, producer and director of last year’s critically lauded film “The Rest I Make Up.” After producing no fewer than 30…
Read More