Stories tagged artist

A Few Good House Calls

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Count the corners where one turns from Artist to pragmatist, and there – within that mist, is a slain ghost waving its fists as all the single dead cells past adolescence.

Gansevoort Ridge

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Raymond Hunter killed a man in Mexico. It was long ago—before Commander Zero took up arms in Chiapas. Before the Shah had been run off the Peacock Throne. Before even the young Hearst heiress had been retired for good and all from the tabloids. And it t

Wild Dreams Of Reality, 3

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The following day, I was so nervous that I decided to have a drink to keep a lid on my nerves. It wasn't even noon yet. They say that's when you know it's getting bad, and that drinking has become a problem. But I hadn't gone out with anyone in over fi

Magnum Opus, or A Portrait of the Artist as a Dead Man

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Imortél and his masterpiece looked deeply at one another: both were nearly complete.

Famous Female Artist

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I remember being sent a picture once from one of my old roommates, Louise, back in Chicago where I came from. The photo was taken when she’d come out for a visit to California. In the picture I am sitting on the front stairs of my house in the Rockridge

The Puppet Maker

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My sister Janis called me from Berlin and said to turn on the news. You could see the thick flurries of snow that were falling there and the flat feathers of peoples' breaths issuing from their mouths as they took turns swinging pick-axes, standing on top

Wild Dreams ofReality, 11

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I took my first shower away from home as if it were a ritual cleansing. It felt especially good, even exciting to be taking a shower in the bathroom of another woman. Why was that? Maybe because it didn't have marble around the bathtub, and it wasn't e

Question for the Artist

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When painting the field, how did you learn yellow lines superseded blue, that the farthest oak is chalk...

Thanksgiving

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Ted rose and began searching cushions of the bad furniture in his loft (Monte's loft, if you thought in terms of leases and rent and who had his shit together). Three shineless quarters in the yellow vinyl chair, a dime in the heater, nineteen cents in t

Artist-In-Residence

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It amazes me how easily I can let go get on a plane and take off live among strangers write in a foreign office read outside on the balcony cook dinner for one drink wine at noon laugh with new friends it amazes me how easily I can let go…

Brussegem, a snug hell (novel excerpt)

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Long ago, this painter Brussegem had hung the dark mantle of Outcast Artist” over his shoulders—and over his life, he formed a strict philosophy—Art and Only Art—and protected his solitude and artistry with all his moody might,....

Frida wonders if there’s a better way

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She’s changed leaves to emeralds. Worn a shawl of inked birds’ wings.

Binge Painter

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One week until the exhibition and only half the paintings were done. This was how Axel worked best, with a gun to his head.

Egon Schiele In Prison

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With his hand, he sees through walls: from the street, From Schonbran park, girls go to rest in his house. They sleep off parents’ beatings. They eat.

Artist's Statement: Oracle

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Mark Reep is a faded Polaroid oracle taped to the only unbroken window of an abandoned house in Ithaca NY.