INK Miami Art Fair is presented by the IFPDA at the Suites of Dorchester, Suite 155, 1850 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, Florida. Fair hours run from Wednesday, December 4, to Sunday, December 8, and the list of artists includes John Altoon, Mary Bauermeister, Lynda Benglis and Harry Bertoia, among many others.

Friday, December 13, Brazee Street Studios and Queen City Glass Arts will host Glass For Greater Good. The event will benefit St. Vincent de Paul Cincinnati and its Angel Toy Program.

The Carnegie, located at 1028 Scott Boulevard in Covington, announced today two new updates for its galleries – new exhibition hours and the addition of gallery attendants. Beginning Dec. 13, 2103, new hours for The Carnegie Galleries will be noon – 5pm, Wednesday – Saturday during exhibitions. The galleries will be closed Sunday – Tuesday.

I have always found watercolor to be a technically daunting medium, something I never wanted to try in undergrad as I worked toward a B. F. A. (Me? B. F. A.? My adviser said I needed to understand the problems visual artists faced as I pursued art history; I do).

“I study cancellations, the manner in which the stamp is placed, the way the address is done…. It’s a marvelous art form, the letter – full of wonder and surprise.” Ray Johnson (1965)

Art lifts, inspires, predicts the future and captures the past. The very pictorial basis of art makes this past ever-accessible, and permanent for widest world audience, preserving history in a way that mere words cannot. Yet things get lost. Time dims, and then erases events that should be unforgettable for the good of humanity.

The November 8th opening at Manifest marked the gallery’s tenth anniversary as well as the grand opening of their much anticipated expansion, effectively doubling their exhibition space. For the past decade, Manifest has been challenging the continually shifting contemporary “brick and mortar” art gallery paradigm by defining and playing by its own rules… and winning.

When I turn the crank she plays her guitar and the lion, carved of yellow poplar, wags its tail, both seemingly moved by moonlight and melody. From my vantage point however, I can see the theatrics; she is a simple machine dependent on my input in order to play her repetitive poetic overture. Up and down her arm moves over five nylon stings plucking out the same tune over and over again.

Sometimes I walk in the dead mall near where I live when I want to clear my head. Tranquility emanates from all the shut-down luxury, the rubbed-off logos above vast empty storefronts, the black-garbage-bagged entrances surrounded in high-gloss marble and hard-wood.

Bruce Riley’s lyrical, organic forms glow through layers of paint and resin, resembling something we can’t quite remember, materializing from a ground we can’t quite locate, coalescing with other forms, then receding back into the abyss. The coalescence is like the moment in between sleep and consciousness when thought coagulates, dancing between dream and reality. The forms are the dream almost remembered.

Basket weaving and embroidery are functional crafts used by people across the globe throughout history, and in this exhibition they are made as purposeful to fine art as painting or bronze sculpture. The artists’ use of these media ‘elevate’ the crafts to art, while the incredible skills alone create a new vocabulary.

Pastel has always been a contentious medium. Today most practitioners fall into the hobbyist variety. It is the bright color and ease of operation that attracts the serious and the idle alike. In the late 19th century, pastel experienced a renaissance of technique and usage, and many of the impressionists took up the medium.

Moby-Dick seems to be everywhere these days. This month of November brought me three new examples. On November 1 PBS broadcast Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Moby-Dick opera as part of its Great Performances series. A few days later, a student introduced me to the Thug Notes version of Moby-Dick on YouTube.

Outside/Inside at Covington Arts is a show its curator, Jennifer Grote, conceives as an interaction between architecture (i.e. the space itself) and the art. Two of the artists take on that challenge with enthusiasm while the curator’s placement produces relationships with the surroundings for the other two.

Initially I was drawn to Thunder-Sky Gallery’s newest exhibit, SUPERUNKOWN: The Neo-Folk Impulse, because of the mysterious and surreal title. To me the title had a space-age mystery about it, as if I was about to step into a new, fantastical world in which things were not as they seem. Perhaps my eyes would be taking in something bizarre and yet magical.

At first glance, Jeffrey Cortland Jones’ paintings are so quiet they are almost silent. Pale and intimately scaled, they seem practically empty. Most of his pieces are not much larger than a computer screen, and their smooth, layered surfaces evoke the cells of a spreadsheet, or windows floating in an Internet browser.

Throughout the long history of artistic expression, ideas have manifested themselves as metaphor and as symbol. humankind, acknowledging itself to be but the conduit or transmitter of these ideas, knew there to be a certain dilution of these root ideas once created. In a sense, the simple act of expression masked the purity of the idea with a veil, or ‘maya’ (illusion in the Hindu and Buddhist sense).

Gena Grunenberg, a Cincinnati artist, initially studied graphic arts, switching later to fine arts. In addition to drawing and painting, she learned various techniques, including pottery, silkscreen, jewelry and stone setting… She uses them interchangeably in her artwork.

“Why Does Contemporary Art Matter?” or why does art in general or all art for that matter, matter. And is contemporary an adjective pertaining only to a certain category of art or does it apply to any art, making it a universal attribute of art?

As our eyes meet they signify the trust we have earned, and I promise that that trust, which is excavated from the precious mines of our souls, will last beyond the life of stars. I promise that our love will remain a river: always flowing, always fueled. I promise to keep you safe because your existence dances in equilibrium with mine; we are one.

For a pleasant journey to soak in flowers matching art masterpieces, I stopped by the Cincinnati Art Museum on November 7 to enjoy the opening of the seventh annual Art in Bloom show where professional and amateur florists chose pictures to represent in flowers. On both the first and second floors, I saw excellent examples of matches that the florists depicted.

The November aeqai is mostly ready–columns by Jonathon Kamholtz on the French alabaster sculpture show at The Dayton Art Institute and by Keith Banner on the Peter Halley print show at Solway  Gallery will be posted early in the week, so check those two additional columns out before you zone out on turkey.

Dave Eggers is one of the world’s most fascinating contemporary writers, as he is also a political activist of the most noble sort. His many activities which enhance the literary arts are all based out of Northern California, and includes a series of books about oral history violations of human rights abuses, particularly in Africa. He also publishes books and magazines under the McSweeney name/label.

To donate visit their website for more details.

Light Up Over-the-Rhine (Light Up OTR) is returning for a fourth year on Saturday, December 14, 2014, taking place in Washington Park and its surrounding areas. Presented by AGAR, Peanut Butter & Jelly Co. (PB&J), and The City Flea, Light Up OTR is an annual tradition aimed at uniting the community as they post 2,000 luminaries throughout the neighborhood.

Nancy Margolis Gallery is pleased to announce our winter show, a Two-Person exhibition of Charles Clary and Ryan Cobourn. The exhibition will be on view from December 13, 2013 through February 1, 2014. The opening reception will take place Thursday, January 9 from 6–8 pm.

“SOS ART 2014,” a group art show and event of sociopolitical expressions for peace and justice, in its 12th consecutive year, will take place at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, May 30-June 8, 2014. Greater Cincinnati artists of all expressions are invited to participate, and the deadline for receipt of applications is May 12, 2014.

Congratulate Litsa by joining us for the eighth annual WE Celebrate Awards on December 5 at the Horseshoe Casino as we honor the best and brightest women in business.

The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art seeks artists for an un-juried international exhibit featuring digital art and photography, December 12, 2013-January 4, 2014. All entries will be printed (8.5″x11″ on heavyweight paper) and shown in the gallery arranged in a grid. Entrants submit JPEG files of original work. Exhibit is limited to space available, early entry is advised. Deadline: December 2, 2013.

Covington Arts bi-annual call for entries: 2014/2015 exhibition season. All artists working in two-dimensional and three-dimensional media are eligible to apply.

Be swept into the holiday mood when Antique Christmas (November 8, 2013−January 5, 2014) returns to the Taft Museum of Art. Guests can celebrate the festive season with friends and loved ones, while they experience the wonder and joy of antique ornaments, toys, and decorations.

Carl Solway Gallery participates in the IFPDA Print Fair 2013 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York (Booth 416), with works by Harry Bertoia, John Cage, Peter Halley, Ann Hamilton, Albert Paley, Richard Pousette-Dart and Hannah Wilke. The fair runs November 7–10, with an opening night preview on November 6.

The Cincinnati Art Museum Gift Shop invites visitors to The Holiday Trunk Show, November 1-3, from 11am to 4:30pm in the Front Lobby of the museum, celebrating the opening of its Christmas Shop with holiday tea, cookies, live music and 20% off all purchases.