Mr. Scatter has been inside more theaters over the years than Hamlet’s father’s ghost, and he is sometimes haunted by what he sees — not the plays so much as the spaces themselves.
Actors are a hardy lot. Give ‘em a script and they’ll perform almost anywhere, from pond-side amphitheaters (Classic Greek Theater of Oregon) to [...]
Today the Scatter Family Land Schooner sets sail for the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula, where the winds whip westerly and the mountain peaks glisten like gold. (Actually the winds tend to blow toward the east, off the Pacific Ocean, and the mountains, when you can see them through the drizzle and the pelting platitudes, [...]
Art Scatter’s cup runneth over. Well, it’s not our cup, actually; it belongs to the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze in Florence, Italy. And that papery-looking swizzle stick inside? If researchers are correct, it’s the finger of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), the great astronomer, physicist and mathematician who ran afoul of the [...]
“What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it, Brick? Didn’t you notice the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?”
That’s Big Daddy stating the unfortunate obvious in Tennessee Williams’ great American play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and although we all know Big Daddy had some pretty serious problems of [...]
Things have changed in Bellingham, Washington, since I was a kid. Thanks to artdaily.org for this report on Saturday’s grand opening of the Lightcatcher, the showpiece of an $18.3 million addition and refurbishment to the Whatcom Museum that adds 42,000 square feet of gallery, education, storage and public spaces.
The $12.8 million new building’s defining feature [...]
Remember the old days, when Cadillac-sized opera singers planted their feet among the scenery and belted beautiful music with no thought to the dramatic possibilities of the opera? Art Scatter’s senior correspondent Martha Ullman West does, and she shudders at the memory. What’s more, she sees the old style’s residual effects in the staging of [...]
Mr. Scatter had coffee today with Deborah Elliott (actually, she had tea, something in a purply-roseish hue) and she reminded him that the 16th annual Sitka Art Invitational Exhibit and Sale is coming up this weekend.
I shouldn’t have let it slip my mind. This annual bash in Miller Hall at the World Forestry Center, up [...]
All right, I know. It’s way past time to get off this Portland Opera kick: Puddletown’s got a lot more fish to fry.
BUT …
How can I not mention Christopher Mattaliano and his big splash (or rather, his show’s big splash) in the front-page centerpiece of today’s New York Times arts section?
I was surprised to see [...]
Above: Sue Perry Olson, dentalium cap, Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw, 2002. Inset: Chooktoot’s doctor regalia, Klamath, ca. 1900. Photos: Frank Miller
On Portland’s South Park Blocks the big visual news this fall is the Portland Art Museum’s splashy China Design Now exhibit and its micro-blockbuster single-painting show of Raphael’s portrait La Velata, [...]
It’s called, I think, charisma. The dress doesn’t hurt, either. One of the pleasures of being part of Friday night’s blogathon at the opening of Portland Opera’s Orphee was meeting artist and photographer CaroleZoom, who after chatting for a bit zoomed in with her camera (unobtrusively, I might add: good photographers have a way of [...]