Illustrator Alice Lin uses watercolor and pigment on rice paper and silk to create intricately detailed worlds. Human and animal figures are enveloped in pastel-toned bursts of swirling flowers, mushrooms, oceans, and rock formations. Despite their storybook-like quality, many of Lin’s works are fairly large, with some spanning more than three feet wide! For the more than 60,000 children from Central America who cross the border unaccompanied.
With lines from Maya Angelou and Richard Wilbur Arcing above our apartment building, above the rousing city and green skirts of the San Salvador volcano, a flock of wild parakeets comes to roost outside our window; my nine-month son rests his head on my chest and all I want is to draw the curtains, but he’s coughed all night and now his breathing is slow, near sleep, though his eyes snap open with each squawk. I imagine the parakeets preening their emerald feathers, joyful in their ceremony of clacks and trills. They are not musing the capriciousness of nature as I am; they don’t know five thirty am, only that the sun has tinged the mountainsides gold and that this alcove echoes their welcome beautifully. The wild parakeets tap at the windowpane and my son stirs, raises his sleep-etched face to mine. Together we slip past the curtain and discover seven green parakeets, perhaps a little smaller, their feathers scruffier than I had envisioned. Two squabble over a prime niche and the stronger one comes towards the glass, wings unfurled, fat tongue thrusting from his open beak. I want to unlatch the window and sprinkle seed, lure them to perch on our shoulders and arms, anything to make them stay longer. Instead, my son, rooted in the things unknown but longed for still-- greets them with the slap of an open palm to the windowpane, and in a clapping of wings they leap from the narrow corridor at once, a raucus fleeing, with headlong and unanimous consent, a disappearing stain, a distant murmuration swallowed from sight. James Brunt creates elaborate ephemeral artworks using the natural materials he finds in forests, parks, and beaches near his home in Yorkshire, England. This form of land art, popularized and often associated with fellow Brit Andy Goldsworthy, involves detailed patterns, textures, and shapes formed using multiples of one kind of material.
With the push of a button or the crank of a handle, these whimsical wooden automata by Japanese woodworker Kazuaki Harada spring to life! The Tradition
by Jericho Brown Aster. Nasturtium. Delphinium. We thought Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt, learning Names in heat, in elements classical Philosophers said could change us. Star Gazer. Foxglove. Summer seemed to bloom against the will Of the sun, which news reports claimed flamed hotter On this planet than when our dead fathers Wiped sweat from their necks. Cosmos. Baby’s Breath. Men like me and my brothers filmed what we Planted for proof we existed before Too late, sped the video to see blossoms Brought in seconds, colors you expect in poems Where the world ends, everything cut down. John Crawford. Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Every year, the people of Sumpango, Guatemala, celebrate the Day of the Dead with giant, colorful handmade kites. The town, known globally for its massive All Saints Day Kite Festival, takes these creations very seriously. These giant kites are masterpieces that require great skill, patience and six months of hard work to construct. This ancient tradition, which dates back nearly 300 years, is also a way for residents to connect with the past. Some believe that the hum sound each kite emits when flown protects the souls of departed loved ones from bad spirits. Loïs Mailou Jones was a Boston-born painter whose plentiful, 70-year art career spanned North America, Europe and Africa. Her eclectic style shifted over time, taking inspiration from African masks, French impressionist landscapes and bright Haitian patterns. An active member of the Harlem Renaissance, she used vibrant visuals to heighten the urgency of her politically charged works, which addressed the joys and challenges of black life.
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AuthorLiterary Magazine NH Art Museums
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