Walter W. Nelson is a good photographer. I say that to distinguish him from the legion of digital-age shutter jocks who have proliferated like mold in a forgotten tub of potato salad ever since Adobe released its first version of Photoshop and Nikon put a scanning element in the back of one of its venerable SLRs. A series of his studies of Georgia O’Keeffe’s beloved Black Place in the Bisti Badlands of Northern New Mexico were exhibited last month at … Read More

Native American people have great respect for animals. Animals are part of their ceremonies and their lives. Often animals are depicted in their artistic creations. Is this only an artistic creation or does this art piece have greater meaning? One can ask the artists for their interpretation or read “Pueblo Animals and Myths” by Hamilton A. Tyler to learn more about the respect and spiritual meaning of animals to Pueblo people. Then you decide. Pictured here are two clay animals … Read More

“Darger’s external life was so small, so unobtrusive (did he fear being sent back to the institution?) that it gave no clue as to the enormity of his inner/other life.”—A. M. Homes, “Inside Out: The Art of Henry Darger,” Artforum, May 1997 My introduction to the work of the self-taught artist Henry Darger, who was born in 1892, came from an article by A. M. Homes in the May 1997 issue of Art Forum. What had initially galvanized my interest in unusual or even … Read More