art – Muttering Retreats

Visiting A Few Old Friends

Shot at the Detroit Institute of Arts on Google Pixel 6 Pro

Personal Bests: The 2024 Edition

I’ve been putting a few of these on BlueSky in preparation for this post, so for those who follow me there, some of this will be old news. Best New-To-Me Film: “The BikeRiders” written and directed by Jeff Nichols Best New-To-Me TV Show: “Ted Lasso” on Apple TV+ Best Morning Soundtrack: “Best of Bach” SpotifyContinueContinue reading “Personal Bests: The 2024 Edition”

Summer’s Last Stand

“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”Sylvia Plath, “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath” Welcome to my next installment of “what’s been going on”. In the words of the great Inigo Montoya, there’s too much. Let me sum up. An afternoon with TomContinueContinue reading “Summer’s Last Stand”

Quiet Art

Re-encountered this poem today, and oh how it resonates. … so this is for us.This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and loveand this is for doing it even if no one will ever knowbecause the beauty is in the act of doing it.Not what it can lead to.This is forContinueContinue reading “Quiet Art”

The Summer of Our Content

“In summer the song sings itself above the muffled words.”William Carlos Williams Seems like it makes sense to follow up my latest observational post about steering into bliss, kindness, and having fun with some photographic evidence of same. Five-star production of “Spring Awakening” at the Flint Rep Back in the director’s chair for a stagedContinueContinue reading “The Summer of Our Content”

Looking Up in Ohio

Cleveland Museum of Art It was high time I checked off another item on my Surround Myself with Beautiful Things in 2024 list. Easily one of the top ten best art museum experiences I can recall, despite its residence in one of my least favorite states in the U.S., the Cleveland Museum of Art isContinueContinue reading “Looking Up in Ohio”

This Weekend in Detroit

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. AndContinueContinue reading “This Weekend in Detroit”

Halfway Flung

Five weeks have passed. Five weeks remain. It is officially the midpoint of the “Flung” rehearsal process, which has prompted me to be somewhat more reflective than usual about how far we’ve come, and where we are headed. In any project, whether it goes smoothly or rockily — or a little bit of both –ContinueContinue reading “Halfway Flung”

Art Votre Service

“Art serves us best precisely at that point where it can shift our sense of what is possible, when we know more than we knew before, when we feel we have — by some manner of a leap — encountered the truth. That, by the logic of art, is always worth the pain.”T.S. Eliot YetContinueContinue reading “Art Votre Service”

Seeing Sien

My latest venture to the DIA brought me to this piece, “Sorrow”, which model was Van Gogh’s so-called girlfriend, Sien Hoornik, who lived with him in Hague along with her son (who wasn’t Van Gogh’s, for the record). Some reports state that Vincent was near-obsessively generous to her, buying her cigars and other fineries andContinueContinue reading “Seeing Sien”