I once attended a dinner at Jan and Warren Adelson’s home. Their New York gallery is known for its collection of American Impressionists and the work of John Singer Sargent. As I moved through the house during this charity event for the Hudson River Museum, I began to recognize paintings at a glance—Sargent and Eakins, a drawing by Ingres, a grisaille gouache by Homer, a medallion by Saint-Gaudens. Nothing was labeled. It was a home, not a museum. But the work announced itself.

Then, over a desk, there was a painting that stopped me. At first, it looked like scratches of color. After a moment, a waterfall began to resolve, but what held me was the color—a very particular Veronese green. And then it clicked: Twachtman. John Henry Twachtman. Adelson confirmed it.

As we rang in the New Year, I found myself thinking about how people gather. Who is welcome. Who is watching. And, inevitably, who is paying.

That line of thought sent me straight down a rabbit hole. I started with the cafés of 19th-century Paris, which functioned less as places to eat than as unofficial social clubs for the Impressionists. From there I moved to the watering holes of New York artists in the last century, where ideas were tested, alliances formed, and reputations occasionally dismantled over a drink.

Dorothy Vogel died in November. Her obituary was short — an elderly woman, a retired librarian — but the life behind it was monumental. She and her husband Herb, a postal clerk, built one of the most important collections of contemporary art on two modest salaries. And then they gave it all away.

I’ve been thinking about what makes art possible — not just the making of it, but the conditions that allow it to exist. When I studied contact improvisation with Steve Paxton at Bennington and later danced with Trisha Brown in New Mexico, I learned that trust wasn’t an abstract concept; it was physical. You lean into another person and discover that their balance supports your own. That same principle — that generosity sustains creation — runs through the story of Judson Church, Black Mountain College, and the Chelsea Hotel. Each was a kind of living experiment in mutual reliance. This post explores how those places turned community into a medium, proving that art and generosity have always been intertwined.

While reading Fiona MacCarthy’s biography of Eric Gill, the English sculptor and designer, I was not only shocked by his behavior (read below), but also by the author’s matter-of-fact way of depicting it. Throughout history, we have had artists who behaved badly. In this “woke” era (I say that proudly), the inclination has been to “ghost” these artists. I advocate for something more nuanced. Let’s neither hide the facts nor erase the art. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t specific artworks I would like to stick a knife through, but that isn’t necessarily due to the bad behavior of the artist.

I’m heading into a busy stretch, and I’d love to see you at any (or all!) of these shows. Mark your calendars now, whether you catch the full summer spectrum at The Erik Laffer Gallery, a concentrated weekend burst in Greenwich, or a seaside finale in Newport, I look forward to talking color frequencies with you in person.

Six-artist show exploring the meeting point of science and poetry in visual form.

I’m heading into a busy stretch, and I’d love to see you at any (or all!) of these shows. Mark your calendars now, whether you catch the full summer spectrum at The Erik Laffer Gallery, a concentrated weekend burst in Greenwich, or a seaside finale in Newport, I look forward to talking color frequencies with you in person.

I’m heading into a busy stretch, and I’d love to see you at any (or all!) of these shows. Mark your calendars now, whether you catch the full summer spectrum at The Erik Laffer Gallery, a concentrated weekend burst in Greenwich, or a seaside finale in Newport, I look forward to talking color frequencies with you in person.

Recently, I started to take a memoir writing course with Marion Roach Smith. When Michael Marton , the German documentary filmmaker who I lived and worked with for eight years, died, I wanted to write something about our work together and I felt that Marion’s class would help me do that. Little did I know what black holes I would wander down in the process.

When I visited Japan, I was filled with questions about how the ideas about Japanese art penetrated the French market. In other words, how did Japanese art arrive on the shores of France. With that question in mind I headed south to Kyushu and on to Sasebo, where my friends lived, and with their help I was able to explore where the Dutch traded with Japan from the small, artificial island of Dejima in Nagasaki Bay.