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What I’m Reading: 10/24/25
Reminiscence Bump: Art, Writing, and Memory Friends of the Visual Arts, Barton Art Galleries, October 28, 2025 Reading List/Links I’m preparing some notes for a talk I am presenting to the Barton Art Galleries Friends of Visual Arts Fall Series this week, and over the course of this year I’ve spent a great deal of…
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Epilogue
“In front of the lens I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art.” Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida The young woman pictured in this photograph…
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2024 Year in Review
Editorial Note: In the absence of a Substack, which I am going to continue to spare you from in the short term, (you’re welcome) my blog posts are purely refections on my freelance work. I need to hold space for broader ideas that are always percolating (I’m manifesting a book proposal here), so continue to…
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Traveling without a Map: Navigating Invitations and Provocations
Another year in the books. January 1, 2022 started just like 2021. I made gumbo and black eyed peas, watched the Twilight Zone Marathon…then I got to business clipping and pasting images, creating my vision board to chart my course for the year. However, there was one notable omission from my annual plan; I didn’t…
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Guideposts to Grace
This week I sat down numerous times to recall the highlights of 2021 and how they shaped my writing this year. So many of these positive memories were nearly eclipsed by personal loss and the neverending distractions from the news cycle. Throughout this year I found solace in the visual image. Art continues to be…
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Artist a Day 2021: Something New
Every year I look forward to February. For me it has always been a month of learning that extends beyond 28 days. I’ve historically dedicated Black History Month to highlighting an Artist a Day on the blog. It’s not only a labor of love, it has been an immensely helpful and impactful writing challenge for…
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Ed Clark: The Motion of the Stroke
In the 1960s a new generation of Black abstract artists faced a double bind, caught between the commercial gallery system’s failure to acknowledge Black artists practicing abstract art, and established Black artists known for figurative work who shunned abstraction as a non-representational expression of the Black experience. Despite these limitations of perception, a group of…
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Artist Vivian Browne and “Little Men”
“Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man. A decent man apologizes not to save face, not to win a vote. He apologizes, and genuinely, to repair and acknowledge the harm done, so that we…
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We Beg Your Pardon?
They call it “due process” and some people are overdue We beg your pardon, America Somebody said, “Brotherman gonna break a window, gonna steal a hubcap, gonna smoke a joint, a brotherman gonna go to jail” The man who tried to steal America is not in jail “Get caught with a nickel bag, brotherman. Get…
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Artist Corey Pemberton Offers Timely Meditations on Home in “creature, comfort” at CAM Raleigh
Los Angeles based artist Corey Pemberton’s latest body of work explores the intimate spaces and vulnerable places that define our notions of “home”. In his current solo show at CAM Raleigh called creature, comfort, Pemberton combines painting, photography, and hand blown glass to create visual environments that depict his subjects in both real and imagined…
Colony Little, Culture Shock Art 