Woodcuts by Loren Kantor

I have always had a fondness for woodcuts.  The stark contrast of the black and white leaves no room for error.  When I saw Loren Kantor's Virginia Woolf, it was all the more evident that this medium reveals just enough of the subject to be familiar, but it withholds as much as it reveals. 

You can look at Tom Waits and hear the rolling gravel in his voice.

If you have never been to the Canyon Country Store, if you have never heard Jim Morrison sing about the "store where the creatures meet," you might just want to visit after seeing this.

Check out Loren's website for more of his woodcuts.

What We Would Have Bought...

...if we had won the lottery. It is the question that every lottery winner is asked: "What is the first thing you are going to buy with the money?" Generally the response is exactly what one might expect: Pay bills. Buy a new car. Buy a house. If I had won the lottery and they asked me what I was going to buy I would have replied: "All 48 of FeLion Studio's "Made in America" cast iron skillets."

It would have been a first.

But seriously, these skillets are not just skillets but works of art. Works of art in which one can cook cornbread. Ask yourself this: "Can you cook cornbread in a Picasso? A Dali? A Hirst? Hell no! But you can cook in Alisa Toninato's "Made In America." Of course, it would take a while to have all of them forged. While they were being forged, I would build a gigantic kitchen with enough stoves to bake 48 pans of cornbread at one time. Then there would be a big party with a gigantic state-by-state cornbread map.



After the party, I would hang all 48 state skillets on my specially built iron skillet wall map.

Needless to say, I am off to buy more lottery tickets!

Women In Art

Philip Scott Johnson took hundreds of images of women in art and morphed them to create this video. It is mesmerizing and a bit creepy. But worth the watch.

The Art of the Steal

"The Barnes Foundation is the only sane place to see art in America."
Henri Matisse

Yesterday I saw The Art of the Steal, a documentary I had longed to see. It tells the story of the Barnes Foundation, one of the largest private collections of art in America.

The Foundation houses what many believe to be the greatest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art in America. There are paintings by Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, El Greco, Francisco Goya, Edouard Manet, Amedeo Modigliani, Jean Hugo, Claude Monet, Maurice Utrillo, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Maurice Prendergast, as well as 181 works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 69 by Paul Cézanne, and 59 by Henri Matisse. The collection also includes ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art, African art and sculpture, and American and European decorative arts and metalwork.



Dr. Albert Barnes was a self made man who became interested in art and education. He collected art and became enthralled with John Dewey's ideas on education. The Barnes Foundation was established to hold his art collection and provide an educational experience for students.

In 1923, Dr. Barnes proudly exhibited his collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was ridiculed by art critics who called his works “nasty” and “primitive”.

Dr. Barnes replied, “Philadelphia is a depressing intellectual slum”.



Dr. Barnes dislike the austere single paintings style of most museums, preferring to hang the art in complementary groups with furnishings and decoration together.


Barnes had no children, so he drew up a will providing for the Foundation and stipulating that it never be moved, sold, or sent on tour. The documentary details how his wishes were summarily disregarded. Much of the documentary is based on the book Art Held Hostage by John Anderson.

Anderson's book, published in 2003, basically ends with the "grand tour" of the collection. After much legal wrangling, the Barnes is currently set to be moved in 2012. It will move a whopping 4 miles up the road to Barnes' intellectual slum of Philadelphia

Matisse, Henri. The Dance II. 1932. The Barnes Foundation, Merion Station

The documentary is a fascinating look into the world of art, or should I say, the world of art vs. the commodity of art. It explores the cozy relationship of politicians and "non-profit" billion dollar charitable foundations. There are issues of race, money, power, law and politics all dancing on the grave of Albert Barnes. It is a giant train wreck and it is impossible to look away.

In 1923, the works Barnes collected were dismissed as ugly and primitive. Today those same works are valued at $35 billion dollars.

To quote that great philosopher Cyndi Lauper, "Money, money changes everything."