Lost Words

Betty J. Cotter

A writer stuck on a story lets the words carry her to a new page.

Family Portrait

Linda Murphy Marshall

Portraits of distant relatives survive a married couple’s home reorganization, the subjects’ friendship in life an inspiration for the future.

The Monster Within

Deborah Kostianovsky

Psychiatrist and art critic Deborah Kostianovsky explains why she can’t turn away from a portrait that terrifies her.

Snow in the Concert Hall

Joe Hitchcock

Composers John Cage and R. Murray Schafer sculpt sound into moments that evade on-demand consumption. What can we learn from these sonic environments?

Greenhouse in the Desert

Joe Hitchcock

“If you revisit the things that once interested you, you can return to that period of your life. It’s part of time’s relativity—how its span depends on the way you spend it—something the pandemic has made visible. Lockdown turns a day into an elevator ride, a walk to the store into months, the house still with dust on your return.”

Graphite Insomnia

Dian Parker

“A deep black square can be an object or an opening. Sometimes you can get a surface so deep, rich, and black that it begins to contain an immense amount of space and light. Your perception begins to equivocate, reading it as both object and void.”

Walls Covered in Basquiat

Erica Johnson

“What might be if he lived? What does it mean that his image is defined and further commoditized without his consent, by the same gatekeepers who contributed to the turbulence in his short life? And under these circumstances: who is art for?”

The Lewis Chessmen, Deer Antler, and a French Bulldog

Paul Karrer

“What could I make with antler?” I recalled the Lewis Chessmen and figured I could attempt to carve a set myself, although I’ve never worked with antler as a medium before. I had no pretensions that it would be even close to the famed Lewis set. In the end, the design was mine, a unique variant of classic.