“Degas is at once the best and the least known of the Impressionists. His ballet pictures are among the most popular images ever created – to modern eyes they look almost too pretty. But in the human chemistry of Impressionism Degas cuts a paradoxical and elusive figure: a severe ascetic with a caustic wit, opinionated, yet intensely private.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
A Century In The Bay: The S.F. Symphony Turns 100
“San Francisco was a music-besotted city as far back as the Gold Rush. The challenge always has been to blend that love of music with a spirit of civic endeavor.”
Anonymous Donor Makes Giant Genie, And Museum Expansion, A Reality
An anonymous donor’s $900,000 check opens the way for a massive expansion of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati – where visitors will “walk beneath a giant genie and enter a fantasy world of American advertising straight out of yesteryear.”
That Language You Spent A Decade Learning? Forget It.
After 9/11, the U.S. government encouraged a flourishing of language programs from Pashto to Kazakh. Now? Not so much: Funding has fled, and along with it, opportunities and departments.
Don’t Whine About Books Dying; Print Your Own Instead
Richard Nash, who pushed Soft Skull Press to prominence in the early 2000s, has moved on to Cursor and Red Lemonade – online communities for writers and readers that he thinks may help revolutionize publishing again.
Kansas Governor Supports The Arts, Except When He Really Doesn’t
At the grand opening of the Kansas City Ballet’s new building, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback’s proclamation in support of the arts creates disbelief and anger at the man who defunded, and essentially destroyed, his state’s arts agency.
Zines Are Back! (Did They Ever Leave?)
Zines, those markers of ’90s do-it-yourself culture, have seen a dramatic comeback in the last few years – and they’re far more than “photocopied blogs.” Even Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan writes for them. Why now?
Why Can’t Comic Sans Get A Date? Font Popularity In The Internet Age
“‘It was a liberating thing in the ’80s’ when it became possible to manipulate fonts with the click of a mouse. But with great power comes great responsibility … and some didn’t use their typeface forces for good. To wit: Comic Sans.”
Seeing Red, And Designing It Too
With theatres across the country mounting John Logan’s “Red,” a play about Mark Rothko, designers have to decide just what shades of the primary color to emphasize.
What Did You Do This Summer? Oh, Just Discovered The Breakup Of A Comet
High school student Hannah Blyth spent her summer discovering asteroids, falling more deeply in love with astronomy … and oh yes, finding photographic evidence of the breakup of a comet.