This and That by JL

Americans seem to love symbols. It’s our shorthand or slang for announcing who we are or how we feel. So it’s no wonder that masks have become as popular as T-shirts, baseball hats or decals as a way of announcing an affiliation or a point of view. As a kid growing up in Far Rockaway, […]

Is art in the workplace just a nice distraction? Or does it have more subtle powers? Studies on this subject seem to infer that art in the workplace boosts both creativity and productivity. With the premise that good design and artful surroundings are positive motivators, Developer Martin Ginsburg launched his latest creative project at City […]

If you’ve been walking to or from The Westchester mall en route to do your holiday shopping, you may have noticed some painterly action on Hale Ave., Maple Ave and South Broadway. For sure, things are beginning to look a lot more colorful in this neighborhood. In fact, three artists are outside painting new murals […]

    Sitting here in my office on my ergonomic Aeron chair, I couldn’t help but wonder: How does a chair become a work of art?  Or does it ever? One criteria might be that it has a name like the Eames chair, named after its designers Charles and Ray Eames and produced by the Herman Miller company. […]

Most serious sculpture exhibitions have daunting requirements–a long list of honorariums, a vitae of prestigious exhibitions, and professional references.  One exhibition we know and love has some slightly eccentric criteria—artworks that are cow-proof, hurricane resistant and having no sharp objects that a cow, for instance, might unwittingly bump into. This exhibition takes place on an […]

    If you are a fan of artist Sol Lewitt, you will want to head to MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, where his paintings are displayed in colorful splendor in a series of huge galleries. The galleries were proposed as an economic development strategy to turn obsolete factory buildings into exhibition spaces for bold works of art. That was in the eighties, when […]

Our exhibition, “Brick by Brick,” is inspiring stories as warm and loving as any brick fireplace. Diana Costello’s grandpa, Pietro Viscogliosi, sounds like the quintessential brick mason, just like Serafino Laboranti, my former neighbor in Queens and the only person I would trust to build a brick floor in my kitchen. Serafino was a master mason […]

    Many of us remember exactly where we were when John F. Kennedy was shot.  For me, the scene is emblazoned in my mind. I was in my kitchen spooning mashed banana into my toddler’s mouth. The radio soothed some Sinatra… perhaps it was The Summer Wind. From bliss, I went into panic mode […]