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A beautiful craftivism in a flowery part of the world

MORE THAN DECORATION: Flower images carry deep cultural significance for the Maya. Left: A figure dating from 600-900bc nestled in a lily. Centre: Needlepoint detail from a huipil (top), part of a traditional everyday dress. Right: Jesus emerging from a lily in an oil...

Gritty beauty seen in foundations of this pretty city

It feels like the Internet has killed the fun of taking snapshots of beautiful cities and people. So many times over the last four months in Mexico I’ve raised my camera (phone) to capture an impressive bronze sculpture or some baroque church facade then...

The pretty and the pretty awful make it into Eastside murals

Urban Crow (detail), by Richard Tetrault I have this vague, hippie-era-soaked memory of my brother and I hanging with my father as he painted a wall alongside some other artists. Forty years later I suggested to my brother that he swing by my own mural project last...

Of portraits and the patriarchy

When my brother showed me his inherited oil painting of a senior citizen, my first thought was: Yeesh. No wonder the young nudes endure.They may not be remembered by history, like this unfamiliar subject, but they are pretty enough to pass down for generations of...