- Encounters: McMaster Summa 2011
The opening reception of McMaster University’s Summa exhibition of Studio Art graduates is always a crowded affair, and this year was no exception. Even with one of the most restrained selections of work that I’ve seen in recent years, the main floor galleries at the McMaster Museum of Art were so densely packed that it […]
- An evening with Vincent van Gogh
It was just over a week ago now that I tempted snowy fate to head down to McMaster University for Dr. Alison McQueen’s lecture, ‘An evening with Vincent van Gogh,’ the second of a public series of talks sponsored by the Friends of Art History at McMaster. Despite being one of those Friends (and I […]
- Friday Links: The lowest common denominator
This week’s Friday Links are coming to you a day late on Saturday, though the weekender spirit of this format remains the same. I blame the Montreal Alouettes for playing so miserably last night that I couldn’t help but stay glued to the television and watch my Ti-Cats school their first-rank asses in the fine […]
- Become a Friend of McMaster Art History
Though I’ve been dialling back the blogging this month to better focus on my own studio work for a change, I’m happy enough to crawl out of my ink-splattered hibernation for a good cause, such as that brought to my attention by the inimitable Dr. Alison McQueen, Associate Professor of Art History at McMaster University, […]
- The Archive and Everyday Life: A Visual Arts Guide
This weekend, McMaster University’s Department of English & Cultural Studies is hosting The Archive and Everyday Life, a conference that promises to bring high humanities studies down to earth for a close look at the commonplace. This merging of disciplines means that there will be several related openings and events at McMaster and on James […]
- Muse Me: 2010 Summa Show at the McMaster Museum of Art
With another April comes another group of graduates from McMaster University’s undergraduate Studio Art program. This year’s exhibition boasts a website that I found useful mainly for putting names to familiar student faces and not much else, given that there’s far more pixel dimensions devoted to photos of the artists than images of their work, […]
- Studio Notes: On Cleaning and Making Messes
Further to my goal to better preserve my studio time in 2010 (after the chilling revelations discussed in this post), you may start to notice an increase in studio-related posts on this blog in the interests of self-enforced accountability. This is the first of such entries in what we might call the sobriety-sponsor relationship; however, […]
- Honey vs. Oil: On Pedagogy in Art
While last week’s three-parter on The Big Picture Revisited revealed time and again that Hamilton sorely lacks a granting body for artists, that fact doesn’t save me from pending grant deadlines for both the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council. And yes, both anecdotal and statistical evidence from that forum showed quite plainly the […]
- A postscript (and continuation) on the dubious value of art education
The conversation around art education that got rolling last week among various blogs including this one has picked up a further thread courtesy of Gabrielle Moser, who is herself just starting a PhD in Art History and Visual Culture at York alongside those same contentious studio-based PhD candidates. As someone with an insider’s view on […]
- The dubious value of art education
Now that we’re entering that time of year when various college and university art programs are cranking back into gear alongside their closed-for-August gallery counterparts (and the time of year when I’ll be reassessing my weekly schedule to include drop-ins at McMaster University’s senior-level art critiques on Thursdays), it seems fitting to have a think […]
