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Maureen Mullarkey: Studio Matters

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Lavabo?

I could not believe my eyes at Mass this morning. There in the sanctuary, just behind and to the right (stage left) of the altar, was a bottle of hand sanitizer. It was not tucked discreetly behind a vase of flowers. There were no flowers. Just an economy-sized dispenser of Purell. The Church has distributed the Eucharist for 2,000 years without benefit of ethyl alcohol. But now my parish has it, right up there in a sacred space. The ancient ritual of the priestly Lavabo (“I will wash my hands among the innocent, and will walk around Thy altar, O God.”) Continue Reading

The Artist as Self-Booster

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DO NOT make your way through comment threads, or click through to off-site links, here is the comment by Banksy referred to earlier by reader Sam at the end of a comment thread: //// Whether you agree with it or not, you have to admit it is a bit rich coming from a product of high hype like Banksy. His own work is notable more for its location—on walls or the façades of buildings—than its content.  Continue Reading

Arty Bollocks

Reader Sam has done us all a great favor by emailing the link to Arty Bollocks Generator. The site provides an instant Artist Statement for anyone applying for a grant, preparing for a show or cobbling together a CV. Gallerists, too, will find it useful for composing the kind of press releases vital to so much contemporary art work. You know, the ones that explore the relationship between gender politics and low-fat ethics.// The Generator provides a 4-paragraph template with arty variations on each paragraph. Continue Reading

The Responsibility of the Artist

A small gem of a book that artists should have on their shelves is Jacques Maritain’s The Responsibility of the Artist. Together with Jacques Barzun’s The Use and Abuse of Art, it is all anyone needs to think or talk about the artist’s ultimate purpose. Dover keeps Barzun in print. Sadly, it does not do the same for Maritain. But scout around for a used copy. (First published in 1960, there exists also a 1972 edition.buy cialis professional generic https://yourcialisrx.com/cialis_professional.html over the counter ) Neglect is owed, most likely, to Maritain’s dual ambition: the pursuit of scholarship and the pursuit of sanctity. Continue Reading

Being an Artist vs. Making Art

BEING AN ARTIST AND MAKING ART are not the same. One is self-conscious, the other is directed outward, as Jacques Maritain observed, to the good of the work—to the perfection of the work of one’s hand (if you are a visual artist) in its service to the eye and a cultivated sensibility. The first is largely a theatrical posture, the second is a commitment to something larger, more enduring than oneself. That something, it is hoped, graces its time in some incalculable way. Continue Reading
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