More on: Editorial

The body that gives poetry. The body that picks up the brush or tackles the clay or sets its hand to write a poem. If, at Image, our imagination is nourished by God incarnate, we are also nourished by a body given.

Unlike a pilgrimage to the Uffizi, Paolini’s installations ask for something other than devotion; his work occasioned in me a kind of wondering that was something other than awe. It invites conversation rather than adulation. The artist is relinquishing control rather than demanding attention.

Stillness is hard. This is going to take practice.

Good criticism also helps us see why some art doesn’t work, or works poorly, activating the worst in us. When criticism is judgmental in the sense of being censorious, that too is in the service of art and our experience. The critic is showing us why we need and deserve better.

When the dots connect, you feel a pulse of intentionality in a universe that seems to be putting on this show just for you. I wonder if those of us who dwell in books are especially susceptible to such delights.

I’m waiting for that strange experience when a picture speaks, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes with a shout, sometimes with a reverberating silence that pulls me to the edge of a precipice where I’m not sure whether I’ll fall or fly.