Bada Shanren

In the current Freer exhibition Masterpieces of Chinese Painting, one artist stands out, as he always has for me. Bada Shanren and his wild, almost abstract brushstrokes seem to fly in the face of of the more controlled work of his contemporaries, at least to this untrained eye. See more here.

Thomas Chimes

Since I was a kid I've run across this mysterious portrait of Alfred Jarry whenever I've visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The painting was made long after Jarry's death by Thomas Chimes (1921 - 2009), a somewhat mysterious figure who studied at the Art Students League, then abandoned New York to spend his life painting in Philadelphia.

They call her Special K

Kuzhali Manickavel (Special K to her fans)is a talented young Indian writer with a fantastic - and very funny - blog. She is one of those rare talents who seem to have no filters between her creativity and the page. For people like me, who find writing a slow slog, and often find ourselves self-editing perhaps a bit too much, she is a breath of fresh air, and someone to be admired.