Blog – Ellen Kwatnoski

STARE… IT IS THE WAY TO EDUCATE YOUR EYE, AND MORE. STARE, PRY, LISTEN, EAVESDROP. DIE KNOWING SOMETHING. YOU ARE NOT HERE LONG.

– WALKER EVANS

Let’s stir up the mulch of inspiration — the sparking, loamy source of the creative process. At times, my mulch-stirring will have direct bearing on what I’m writing, and at others, none at all. Or, more likely, I just haven’t yet found the connection. Let me know what inspires you . . .

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Museums

Toasting Peggy Guggenheim on the Grand Canal

Ah Venice! San Marco, the Doge’s palace, the canals, the atmospheric fog, the bridge of sighs. Sigh… All magical, to be sure, but the most compelling attraction on a recent visit to Venice was the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, housed in…

Museums

Dots Fine—Neo-Impressionism and the Dream of Realities: Painting, Poetry, and Music

Sorry about the pun. I just had to poke a little fun at the high-blown title of this show, now on view at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. The exhibition includes some 70 works by 15 artists working in the late 1880s to mid-1890s--…

Museums

Contemporary Latino Portraits—Riffing off of Identity and Self

I must confess to an uneasy relationship with contemporary art. I often get the sense that I’m not in on the joke, or the materials seem strangely chosen, or it’s technically proficient, but cerebral. It’s probably generational, but…

Museums

The National September 11 Memorial Museum, New York City

We each bring our memories of that terrible day with us when we return to ground zero. No matter how far away, or how close we were to that place on that day, our lives were changed. And now, more than a dozen years later, there is all that…

Museums

Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The "starchitect" Frank Gehry shares a passion of mine (and many others): He’s an ardent Alexander Calder fan, having been smitten by this master of motion at a Guggenheim retrospective in 1964. Working with Stephanie Barron, the curator…

Museums

The Best of Friends, the Best of Collaborators—Degas/Cassatt at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The most satisfying art shows—and this is one of them—pair beautiful, challenging, or even disturbing art with informative behind-the-scenes information, be it historical, technical, personal, or in this case, all three. Close friends for…

Ellen Boyers Kwatnoski

Stories of Secrets Kept and Told

STARE… IT IS THE WAY TO EDUCATE YOUR EYE, AND MORE. STARE, PRY, LISTEN, EAVESDROP. DIE KNOWING SOMETHING. YOU ARE NOT HERE LONG.

– WALKER EVANS

Toasting Peggy Guggenheim on the Grand Canal

Dots Fine—Neo-Impressionism and the Dream of Realities: Painting, Poetry, and Music

Contemporary Latino Portraits—Riffing off of Identity and Self

The National September 11 Memorial Museum, New York City

Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Best of Friends, the Best of Collaborators—Degas/Cassatt at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC