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From Ansel Adams to Calvin: The Surprising Inspiration for Landscape Art
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“More than five centuries after Calvin and almost two centuries after Cole, the art of beautiful uninhabited landscape still moves and inspires us.”
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Deirdre Weinberg
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With a style that ranges from realistic to abstract and mysterious, Deirdre Weinberg depicts a variety of subjects from landscapes and cityscapes to scenes from everyday life. A creator of paintings, illustrations, and murals, Weinberg considers herself a figurative painter whose work “always has political or social underpinning.” Weinberg feels that being an artist is innate to who she is; for her, she says, making art is “such a part of you – like an extension of your hand.” Even though her family urged her to study art formally, Weinberg decided not to go to college for art, because, she explains, “I was worried about being trained and not having a chance to develop my own style, of being taught only to develop the vision of the teacher and not my own.” Instead she studied landscape architecture and went on to work as a city planner.
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Darío Mekler Illustrates the Absurdities of Modern Life
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Working with oils, watercolors, and acrylics, Argentinian artist Darío Mekler creates bold, colorful paintings that address the complexities of modern life. He skillfully uses fantasy and humor to illustrate human nature, painting monsters, angels, and absurd robots alongside images drawn from everyday experiences. Mekler has been creating for as long as he can remember. “Making things feels pretty natural to me, since when I was very little,” he says. “Not just drawing, but all kinds of creative activities: inventinggames, building things out of paper, writing.”
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Why Schools Should Include Hip-Hop in the Curriculum
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It’s true that commercial hip-hop is often sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, and violent. The same is true of contemporary cinema, television, sports, and wider American culture. This is precisely why we should create spaces for our students to critique these messages.
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Imaginings Roll Out!
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Across the cultural landscape, powerful dreamers everywhere are tapping into this same deep truth. Just two quick examples: the young organizers who formed Dream Defenders in 2013 to “develop the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise our independent collective power” chose a fierce and evocative name for their work. Earlier this spring, when Black Lives Matter called for voices to “help imagine a world where black life is valued by everyone, our rights are upheld, and the beauty and power that is our blackness is celebrated,” they called their action “In a world where Black Lives Matter, I imagine…..”
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Art Gallery Feature: The Journey of the Ethiopian Community Is Not Over Yet
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Their arrival to the Promised Land has not meant complete freedom and escape from injustice for the Ethiopian community in Israel. An Art Gallery feature from photographer Galit Govezensky.
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Field Office Annals, Part Two: Engagement, Vision, and Play
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One of the Department of Art’s foundational ideas is that the local and national feed and support each other. That is essential, connections to a larger movement, to other practitioners, to other ideas.
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Yom HaBilbul: A Meditation on Conviction and Confusion in the Holy Land
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“In the evening men and women of Tzahal / will sing the Internationale in formation/ dancing through Mea Sh’arim / NO TOUCHING. let’s not get crazy.”
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Field Office Annals, Part One: Filling A Need
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In one place, a U.S. Department of Arts and Culture Field Office might be an actual physical space where people meet and collaborate. In another, it’s a Facebook group and a moveable feast of gatherings, work sessions, and presentations. “It’s almost as if the Imagining is the soil and whatever happens in that space is ultimately going to be reflected in a Field Office.”
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Comics for the New Economy: The Art and Activism of Kate Poole
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At first glance, the fields of economics, religion, and comics seem utterly apart; a combination of two of them, let alone all three, would seem incongruous. However, in her innovative work, economist, artist, and activist Kate Poole delivers impassioned yet playful critiques of capitalism from a spiritual perspective.