Robert Brady: Desert Canto Why can one artwork completely stop us in our tracks? I mean, I saw a pot one time in the Philadelphia Museum. I saw a lot of good things there. Brancusis, Martin Puryears, there was a whole room of Shaker stuff. Beautiful! I had looked at all that, and finally I walked past this little pot about this big [gestures]. I stopped and looked at it, and this pot just gave me this flutter in my chest. It was about 700 years old, and I was thinking how can this little object compete and rise above everything else I've seen in this museum? Read more »
Judy Pfaff: The Interior Landscape You throw yourself into the middle of the fire. I don't know how most people learn, but unless I'm really challenged, I won't go ahead. So the story of my getting to Oak Island in my little dinghy with my cat clinging to me and my dog, a Lab, jumping overboard in a storm, and the motor conking out, and someone finding me drifting out into the Great South Bay and pulling me back.I mean I live for those moments! But sometimes I also think. "You could die, too!" Read more »
Jim Barton: A Certain Mathematics To call Jim Barton a chain-saw artist would be misleading. He does use a chain saw, but much the way Pablo Casals uses a cello. I first met Barton several years ago. He drove me out to a wooded area where he was working on "a little carving project." At that time, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Stepping out of his pickup truck we walked through a stand of trees to a large wooden deck. I was shocked to see perhaps thirty large, hand-carved Quan Yins standing there in various states of finish. Looking at them, I made an immediate note to self: come back in a couple of years to see this Barton fellow again when I would have more time. Now I was back. Read more »
Leigh Hyams: This Incredible Fact of Being Alive It was easy to miss the door at 545 Sutter Street. It opened into a narrow foyer where one suddenly felt transported back to the San Francisco of the 1950s. Meridian Gallery was one flight of narrow stairs above where I was supposed to meet Leigh Hyams. Leigh had been Philip Guston's assistant years ago. She has a lifetime of wonderful art stories. But better than that is Leigh the artist, herself. I've come to see her as an art warrior. It's not a political thing, but something broader and deeper. Read more »
Milford Zornes: An Artist's Life It was my first time in Claremont Fine Arts. The place specialized in paintings from .The California School. I learned. I pointed to a painting, .What about that one?. The owner said, .It.s by Milford Zornes.. The name alone was worth my visit to the gallery, I thought. The owner continued, .Milford is a character. He.s ninety-seven and he.s blind. He.s giving a watercolor workshop tomorrow!. Now I was stopped a second time. .How can I meet this guy?. I asked. The owner picked up his phone. Read more »
Denise Zabalaga: We Are All the Other Photojournalist Denise Zabalaga grew up in Switzerland with her Italian mother and Bolivian father. Italian and Spanish were spoken at home. When Denise was sent to school she didn.t know the German spoken there, an experience that gave her a lifelong feeling for, and identification with, outsiders. The experience helped bring an unusual freedom from the projection of fear and mistrust on strangers. Instead, she has a deep interest in people of other cultures. Having taught herself Farsi, she traveled alone in Afghanistan, Syria, Damascus, Iran and Tajikistan. We talked about that and much more. Read more »
Richard Berger: An Elusive Genius Richard Berger is a senior faculty member at the San Francisco Art Institute where he chaired the sculpture department for over twenty years. Although Berger was the recipient of the Adeline Kent Award in 2004, he's one of those remarkable artists who should be far more widely known. There's at least one contingent of people who recognize Berger for his brilliant expositions as a teacher, a generation of students. And when I've asked other Bay Area artists if they know Richard Berger, the response is usually some variation on a theme: "Oh, yes. He's a genius!" Read more »

A collection of in-depth interviews with artists from all walks of life.

FEATURED INTERVIEWS

Jane Rosen: Towards Intelligence of Life Rosen is a sophisticated artist. But she told me she wanted to make work that you didn't have to have a Master's degree in Art History to understand. She talked about an elegant old black man, Mr. Anstley Yarde, who taught her how to fish. She would meet him at six o'clock in the morning.
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Gale Wagner: An Art of Joy The day I met Gale, The Secret Alameda, an art magazine I'd started with Dickson Scheider.s help, was a year old. I remember how that first conversation with Gale was a lift. It was my first experience of "the Wagner effect." That was twenty years ago. He.d founded the Pacific Rim Sculpture group in the Bay Area.
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Taya Doro Mitchell: Keeping Your Hands Moving "What about the rest of your house?" I asked. Mitchell led me up a stairway to a door. It opened into quite a different world. Every wall and ceiling in each room was covered with an astonishing variety of items: objects, figures, tableaux, cutouts, dioramas, discards and parts..."
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Tom Weidlinger: Tree of the Art of the Mind Weidlinger writes, .I ate my sandwich and then looked up at the tree. For the first time I noticed what appeared to be bits of white rubbish scattered around its trunk and throughout its branches. Dismayed by this blight, I decided to collect the trash and put it in my pack. When I moved closer to the tree, I discovered that it wasn't trash.
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Art of Engagement

Monday, Sep 12, 2011

Why are the arts so often considered frills when it comes to what is needed in schools, in politics, in so many parts of life? The capacity for creative response is needed in all walks of life. In this issue we explore art as a tool for social engagement. Read More

Sharing the Wealth

Friday, June 27, 2011

It's been my good fortune to have more than my share of remarkable friends, and several of them appear in this issue of the newsletter. One of the joys of having a venue like this newsletter is that its a vehicle for expanding my own circle. Read More

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Conversations.org is a collection of in-depth inteviews with artists from all walks of life. It's a project of CharityFocus, a fully volunteer-run effort that aims to empower gift-economy efforts. Carrying no advertising, making the entire interviews available on-line without charge, ours is a humble effort to "be the change we wish to see in the world."

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