I’ve been thinking a lot about family art lately and the many forms it can take. The objects and art our families pass on. Paintings, sculptures, tapestries, collections, depression era glasswares, special little trinkets, the plates my family only used for special occasions. The things we inherit. Heirlooms. Things both sentimental and potentially valuable. For instance, I’ve been told that one day I’ll be getting my great grandmother’s fancy full-service china set. That, to

Lately, when I go to write about art, I’ve been feeling a little stuck. No inspiration springs effortlessly to mind. This got me thinking about art and its place in my life; how my relationship (or lack of) with it has shaped (or hasn’t) my view of the world. What came to me is a moment I remember well: I was at the Oregon Book Awards at The Armory building in downtown Portland. It was 2013 and author Ismet Prcic had just won for fiction. He was giving his acceptance speech b

I am unwaveringly fond of modern art museums. It’s one of the first things I look up when I search for things to do in a new city, and it was no different for my trip to Shanghai. But let me start here: Shanghai is big. Imagine a big city you’ve been to – if it’s Los Angeles, multiply the population by six, if it’s New York City, multiply by three, if it’s Delhi, you’re getting closer but you still need another 6 million. I have been to a lot of big cities, but nothing really

There I was, in the MoMA for the first time ever and sick to my stomach, trying to use the art as a visual antacid. It was November two years ago, and my family and I were in New York City for a couple of days before flying to Florida to go on a week-long cruise for my brother’s 30th birthday. But before the beaches and warm weather, I found myself staring at original Van Goghs and other omnipresent artists in a world-class museum. While sluggishly scanning the rooms, I remem

My daughter and I were in Prague, Czech Republic, making our way to the Kafka Museum when we came upon a fascinating sculpture. Proudy, by internationally famed sculptor David Cerny, greets anyone who enters the museum’s plaza from the twists and turns of alleyways along the left bank of the Vltava River. Proudy is comprised of two smiling, patina’d bronze men peeing into a pool shaped like the Czech Republic. Created by stacking slices of carved bronze, their life-size bodie

It was another rainy Wordstock weekend in Portland. (Okay, I know this is the third post I’ve started that way, but I promise I’m going somewhere different with this one.) But it was – Wordstock weekend, I mean... and raining. And even though I got to hear a handful of fantastic authors discuss their work – namely Jeffrey Eugenides, Danzy Senna, and Ta-Nehisi Coates – there was another element of the day that stood out the most. Wordstock has been hosted at the Portland Art

It arrived in the mail, one of my first assignments for my Master’s in Fine Arts Program: The Lady in Gold, a book by Anne-Marie O’Connor. I was accepted into a pan-European low-residency program for creative writing, and our first residency was in July, in Vienna, Austria, and the book was to be one of my weekly assignments. I didn’t know what to expect out of the “golden book,” but I had a feeling that, if the picture on the cover and the quote from The Washington Post: “Fa

Okay, so maybe this particular Michael Jackson was an Italian imposter. But in makeup, a bright red jacket, white socks, and black loafers, he strutted around his small section of the square in a fairly successful imitation of the King of Pop. My classmates and I watched among a large half-circle of tourists – all taking photos or videos and occasionally staying long enough to drop a coin or bill into the performer’s hat when he passed it around the crowd. Until I started tra

In the Vatican Museum in Rome – on your way down to the Sistine Chapel, after weaving your way through rooms and rooms of paintings and tapestries by famous artists from hundreds of years ago – you’ll find a small display of modern art pieces. Or at least I did when I was there in the Fall of 2013. I’d spent hours upstairs taking in dark portraits and religious symbolism of the Italians masters, but while I rushed my way through the seemingly empty mid-level of the museum, so

In March I was back in Bath – just shy of 10 years after my first visit. We (my mother, her best friend, and her best friend’s sister) visited the Jane Austen Centre, the famed Roman Baths, enjoyed afternoon tea in the pump room, and popped our heads into the surrounding gift shops. The tea, the cakes, the rain, the sun, the architecture, more rain, more sun. It was a pretty (typical) day in England. After hitting up several of the more common tourist spots, we found ourselve