As we near the end of another art season, which is generally thought to run from September through June, much like the academic year, some patterns have emerged which we should note. The predominant movement seems to be towards a near complete domination of the visual arts by non-profits, and the very shaky existence of commercial galleries: at the heart of this matter may be art collecting itself.

Posh, intelligent and no-nonsense, “Cries in the Night: German Expressionist Prints around World War 1” (June 21, 2014 to August 17, 2014 at the Cincinnati Art Museum) is both a scholarly tour de force and a pleasure just to look at.

When I think of photos of musicians, I immediately visualize them caught up in the performance, on stage, perhaps dramatically lit, with maybe a glimpse of an appreciative audience – raucous or captivated.

There is plenty of spiritual energy in the great landscape paintings of 19th century America, but it is usually Emersonian in nature–Christian by implication and default rather than intention. That spirit is sometimes dreamy and solitary, and sometimes busy with life and labor. Sometimes it is found in the smallest details and sometimes it is in the sublime sweep of empty space.

Ah, Texas; is there any place that elicits such polarized opinion as the Lone Star state, regardless of whether one has actually set foot within its borders? Even my dad, whose Scottish forebears were in Texas for three generations before his parents left to start a school next door in New Mexico, liked to tell my brothers and me that the slogan for Lucky Strike cigarettes—“L.S.M.F.T.”—actually meant “Lord Save Me From Texas.”

The Manifest Artist in Residency Program has been expanded to include a double position this year. The work of Jeremy Plunkett and Nicholas Anthony Mancini produced during this residency term is exhibited at the Woodburn avenue gallery.

Nothing could be more natural than the mix of art and books. Both benefit, and the public is the biggest winner of all. Unfortunately the rarest and most beautiful of this partnership are kept safe from harmful light and the dirt and oils of human hands, often not even known of until an exhibit of gems of an era are put on special exhibit.

A visitor winds her way off interstate roads to reach artist Beverly Erschell’s home, tucked away in a house overlooking the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky.

I’m staring at a Maker’s Mark glass. It’s quirky. It has a red plastic base that gives it the appearance of dipped and dripped wax. “Oh, Liz, Go ahead, take it. It’s a great souvenir.” It did make sense to take it home.

The sulfur smell of the marsh, the waves of the Atlantic rolling up onto the surrounding beach communities, afternoon rain showers, the funky smell of the historic downtown streets on a hot, humid day…oh, and the restaurants, and of course, Spoleto. There is much to recommend in a visit to the Low Country in late May and early June.

It’s difficult to talk about the unnecessary rift between art, design and craft without being somewhat didactic and hypocritical. The “disciplines” need to be separated to some degree to begin a conversation about them in the first place. It’s ambiguous at best to later backpedal and claim that art, design and craft are in fact the same at some very elemental level.

Andrew Au, a Cincinnati-based artist, was born in1972 in Chicago, IL; he grew up in Keyser, WV. Au has drawn ever since he was able to put pen to paper, influenced from an early age by science fiction, religion, reading and art.

The Cincinnati Art Museum recently announced the acquisition of a clock by Jean Puiforcat. The c. 1930 desk clock, made of nickel-plated brass and rosewood, is to be installed in the museum’s Gallery 211 by the end of June 2014.

Clever Girl, by English writer Tessa Hadley, establishes her in great tradition of English women writers whose symbolic ancestor remains Jane Austen. I admit to being something of a sucker for family sagas, including The Forsythe Saga by John Galsworthy, and Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann.

The June issue of aeqai is now ready for your aesthetic pleasure and intellectual enjoyment. We are just beginning that time of year when the pace of the arts and urban culture relaxes a little, so this is a smaller edition of aeqai.

Terracotta tiles lain on bamboo stalks; fired earthen rain protectors, decorous and new. The roof of past was treacherous due to brilliant swoops of egret flocks landing, loosening grass ties as they gawked, waiting while others caught up. Cankerous, thwarted surreptitiously; cancerous, the rotted old roof was carefully doffed.

We are cutting through calm waters in a ship so large, so superbly engineered that only now and then does a tremor indicate we are at sea. The Queen Mary II is majestic indeed, elegantly Art Deco in most respects and staffed by people so obliging they seem to be a race apart. My daughter and I are en route to Southampton, where we will be met by my son and his wife, who have lived in London for more than twenty years.

Just as I had stated last month that Francine Prose’s novel The Chameleon Club is the best novel of 2014 to date, I read Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, which I think it’s safe to call a masterpiece. Written over a ten year period but just published, Doerr’s novel also takes place in Paris between the wars, as Prose’s novel does as well.

Who cried, in that other time from now, Whose heart hurt, unhealed, until Bliss intruded, out of nowhere, and then was gone again.

The Cincinnati Art Museum is proud to announce our exhibition schedule for our upcoming 2014-2015 exhibition year. The following titles and dates are all subject to change as we continue to plan our exhibition schedule for 2014-2015. High resolution images are available upon request.

Come (in person or in spirit!) to the opening reception this Saturday for “Convergence” at the Korean Cultural Art Center of Chicago. 5 – 8PM. This is a curated, invitational group exhibition. Pictured is one of my first 2013-2014 sabbatical paintings from my “Arcadia” series which is among the four paintings of mine that will be on display. The exhibition continues through Sunday, June 29.

Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner will work with Cincinnati area dancers to present Bodies in Urban Spaces in downtown Cincinnati for two performances. Bodies in Urban Spaces is a moving trail of site-specific interventions, choreographed for a group of dancers. The performers lead the audience through selected parts of public and semi-public spaces.

My annual journey to downtown Chicago is upon me. To all of my Chicagoan collectors and friends, I hope to see you this weekend for another great Old Town Art Fair in Old Town Chicago. To all of you that won’t be in the area and would like to see/purchase one of the new pieces I will have a special section on the website that will go up on Friday featuring the new pieces at the show.

Discover a landmark of American art by Thomas Cole, a leader of the Hudson River School. Cole’s allegorical paintings, The Voyage of Life, depict the course of a man’s life as a river journey through four magical landscapes.

It’s that time of year again! The Clifton Cultural Arts Center is honored to celebrate the talented artists in our region and warmly encourages all artists of fine arts disciplines living and working within 25 miles of CCAC to participate in year five of The Golden Ticket.

Manifest is an internationally recognized award-winning non-profit organization founded in 2004 by students and professors dedicated to creating high quality experiences of visual art through exhibition, publication, artist-support, and education.

You are invited to the Visionaries + Voices Northside Studio on Thursday, June 19 from 6-8 pm for the inaugural event in our series of Open Studio Art Making Evenings.Please come to our studio to make art + participate in our Fall exhibition: “Envelope: A Mail Art Show”, in celebration of YOUR neighborhood. We’ve been corresponding via snail mail with the world for about one year and want YOU to be a part of it too.

Manifest is an internationally recognized Cincinnati-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2004 by students and professors dedicated to creating high quality experiences of visual art through exhibition, publication, artist-support, and education.

Manifest is an internationally recognized award-winning non-profit organization founded in 2004 by students and professors dedicated to creating high quality experiences of visual art through exhibition, publication, artist-support, and education.

The Mission presents: The Sub-Mission, an alternative installation project space dedicated to the development of artists living and working in Chicago.

Art Off Pike is Covington’s creative urban arts festival and it’s a perfect opportunity to sell your artwork in Northern Kentucky! This year, we celebrate our 10th Anniversary and you won’t want to miss what’s in store for September 28th.

Visionaries + Voices in conjunction with Western Exhibitions, Chicago, is proud to announce the Cincinnati Art Museum’s purchase of Courttney Cooper’s “Cincinnati Map”. This piece was shown in connection with Courttney’s first museum show, “Cincinnati Everyday”; on view at the Cincinnati Museum of Art last May-September 2013.

The High Museum of Art/Atlanta has recently added contemporary artist Eric Mack to the permanent collection!

Solomon Nikritin – George Grosz. Political Terror and Social Decadence in Europe Between the Wars. Drawings & Prints. The State Museum of Contemporary Art-Costakis Collection invites you to the opening of the exhibition on Wednesday 4th of June 2014 at 20:30, at Moni Lazariston.

For the last three years, gallery one One’s juried summer exhibition has focused on color. This year it’s another basic design element – “shape: Circle.”

Blast Off, an exhibition at Arcilesi / Homberg Fine Art. Opening Reception Thursday June 5th 6 – 9pm.

Joomi Chung’s “Atlas 4” (2011) is an acetate scroll of indeterminate length, standing like an elephantine roll of film on one of its edges, allowing us to scrutinize some of its intricate webs of markings. It has been covered with networks of (mostly) black ink, some of which are traceries of line and others of which are more like shapes.

A few months back I went to see the Mike Kelley retrospective at the New York City Museum of Modern Art PS 1 space, and I was floored. More than floored actually – more like cosmically overwhelmed. The show was exhaustive and high-style and punk and stupid and hyper-intelligent and mean-spirited and full of love. I could go on.

After a five-year hiatus, the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery turned its compass to the northern side of Cincinnati to revive popular studio tour/art walk North By Northside. On May 18, 2014, event organizers Dennis Harrington and Kelly O’Donnell produced a rare opportunity to experience a comprehensive look at the visual arts in this eclectic community that has emerged along the Hamilton Avenue corridor.

Comprised of seven thematic galleries that portray the cultural, historical and religious heritage of the Jewish people, the Cincinnati Skirball Museum has a long history as one of the oldest repositories of Jewish cultural artifacts in America, according to its website.

The exhibit currently haunting Semantics Gallery in Brighton is called “The Moon Show,” and it has the stylish quiet and unnerving grace of a palace right after a coup, or a vast suburban mall that’s just about kaput.