Backwords Press: Visit Our Weekly Blog

BACKWORDS blog explores the intersection between presence and history. The blog is a platform that honors the moment of encounter that any one person experiences—with art, literature, music, performance, or place. Often, reflections fit multiple categories—the opposite of a news program or style blog, BACKWORDS is not preoccupied with immediacy. An event does not need to be current to be relevant, nor does a memory need to be close to its origins to hold its potency.

Featured Posts

2020 and The One Where We All Try to Stay Sane

2020 and The One Where We All Try to Stay Sane

Tunnel Vision: Preparing to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Tunnel Vision: Preparing to Hike the Pacific Crest Trail

Giverny, This Way

Giverny, This Way

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

My First Foray Into The Wonderful Wallowas

Spice and Rain

Spice and Rain

Traveling with Less

Traveling with Less

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

Antibiotics and Balinese Dance, A Winning Combination

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

Let's Confuse Each Other In German: How I Turned 30 in Paris

Recent Posts

A Brown Betty and a Family Pothole: Thieves and Potters

A Brown Betty and a Family Pothole: Thieves and Potters

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

What Kind of a Question is "What is Art?"

What Kind of a Question is "What is Art?"

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

Seth at the MoCA Shanghai (and me at another modern art museum)

Seth at the MoCA Shanghai (and me at another modern art museum)

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

Andrew Wyeth: an American Artist Everybody Knows(?)

Andrew Wyeth: an American Artist Everybody Knows(?)

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

The Pride of Proudy

The Pride of Proudy

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

Another Rainy Wordstock Weekend: Laika Studios and Making Time for Art at the Portland Art Museum

Another Rainy Wordstock Weekend: Laika Studios and Making Time for Art at the Portland Art Museum

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

Dreams of Gold

Dreams of Gold

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

That Time I Saw Michael Jackson Perform in Piazza De Popolo

That Time I Saw Michael Jackson Perform in Piazza De Popolo

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

El Anatsui and My Love of Modern Art Museums

El Anatsui and My Love of Modern Art Museums

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

The Art of the Victoria Art Gallery

The Art of the Victoria Art Gallery

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

The Art of (Mr.) Brainwash

The Art of (Mr.) Brainwash

Outside of the context, it’s odd for me to say I was hunting for rats. It was 2012 and I was traveling solo in Berlin but had befriended a lovely Kiwi girl. We had decided to go on the “Alternative Walking Tour” offered by our hostel. Our guide was an enthusiastic ex-pat from Maine, and his normal tour quickly turned into a treasure hunt of street art. The most famous artist on display was Banksy – one of his signature designs is a rat. I found myself drawn to the idea of thi

Artist Kiki Smith: From Heart to Hand to Head

Artist Kiki Smith: From Heart to Hand to Head

This past year, I found myself at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston for the first time. I was there with my boyfriend (who lives there) and my father (who, like me, was also in town). The ICA building, nestled pristinely along the harbor among new high-rises and old warehouses, is full of eclectic and modern art. I remember there was a striking piece of delicately strung burnt charcoal remains, like a reconstructed and still destroyed tree-chandelier. Elsewhere, a

Medieval People of Color: Visibility Is Not a 'Zero Sum' Game

Medieval People of Color: Visibility Is Not a 'Zero Sum' Game

About a year ago, amid the Tumblr minefield, I came across a blog called Medieval People of Color. Rather than use my (albeit limited) platform today to highlight the (good) work of another museum—while often worthy and fair game—I choose instead to share this incredible resource. Yes, I’m not a person of color; and please consider me liable, as always, for whatever words I say. Medieval People of Color exists to provide counter-argument to the popular sentiment, grown up fro

Something Else This Week, And What Matters

Something Else This Week, And What Matters

I’m not going to write about the “orange thing with tiny hands” that I know people in my camp are writing about, talking about, avoiding, bemoaning, resisting, marching, crying, and/or self-medicating over. I won’t mention how “orange face w. tiny hands” on his first day in office overhauled the White House website so that it’s now very clearly missing pages for climate change, civil rights, disabilities, gay rights, and health care. Other news sites have parroted “OFTH’s” th

Arcane Collective's "ebb"

Arcane Collective's "ebb"

Suspension. Stop-motion. Start. A slowing. Everything liminal, until it thaws. That’s how we were led into Arcane Collective’s “ebb” at Bodyvox. Opening night was suppose to be on Thursday, until the snow started in Portland and everyone retreated slowly and safely back home. Closures around the city were announced one after the other, and freezing rain confirmed everyone’s reaction, confining us all indoors, encased in ice. So instead, Phillip and I attended the show on Satu

The Art of Leaving

The Art of Leaving

In a strange yet somehow-exactly-anticipated respect, Jenny’s blog piece last Wednesday—her “Prolonged Performances of Grief,” the fiercely humbling tribute she wrote on losing me to Los Angeles—has made (the thought of, the act of) moving easier. She’s done the grieving, honestly, openly, already. Her gift—not in the least because it went on for pages, and whoever ever has pages devoted to themselves and their (apparent) virtues—had me in tears, getting up from my spindly co

Art of Choosing (without apps) and Cultivating Awe

Art of Choosing (without apps) and Cultivating Awe

On the way to the Oregon coast for Labor Day, my partner used Waze a community-based traffic navigation app. Turn by turn directions and traffic alerts piped through the speakers. I am already familiar with Google Maps and GPS – short for global positioning system, which I had to look up because I’ve only ever used GPS to talk about GPS – but I was surprised, delighted, and even unnerved by the future-telling powers that Waze seemed to have: “hazard reported ahead,” “traffic

The Highs & Lows with Jim Gion

The Highs & Lows with Jim Gion

The first time I saw the gallery, it wasn’t named the High & Low, or the Hi Lo, or the Hi Low, or even the Hi & Lo. It was something else: a punk-black exterior, with large windows and blood-red walls inside. Biking by from my apartment off of 34th and SE Belmont, my third apartment in six months, my gaze was drawn like a moth to the large canvasses of graffiti hanging inside. This period of my life was colored by post break-up malaise. Time’s linearity disappeared. I was obl

Ansel Adams' Yosemite

Ansel Adams' Yosemite

Two years ago, my boyfriend-at-the-time was visiting from Australia, and we took a wide looping road trip to National Parks in the West. Yosemite National Park was the third stop on our itinerary. I had been there once already, but in the winter and only for a short hike in the snow before continuing back to Portland. I was excited to really get to see the park and explore. There have always been two things that represent Yosemite in my mind: the first being naturalist, John

Art in the Ancient World

Art in the Ancient World

In the summer of 2004, the Brigham Young University Museum of Art opened an exhibition entitled “Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World,” a 204-piece collection of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts. Provo’s most popular newspaper, The Deseret News, lauded the exhibit—which was roughly 60% of a permanent showcase from the Boston Museum of Fine Art—“what is sure to be one of the most important, talked-about exhibitions of this year and next.” Yet the exhibition, all

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