Last week, my husband and I got the sad news that our friend, artist Burton Chenet, was shot to death in his home by an intruder. His wife, Christine, sustained a serious injury when the gunman shattered her elbow with another shot before...

"What? You and three other people?"

That's what a friend of mine said when I told him I went to see John Carter. And in fact, there were just about three people in the audience. And that's a shame. What a waste. All that crazy money --

If that title looks perfectly okay to you, you can stop reading right now.

A friend of mine decided to create a line of T-shirts that lament this country's woeful mangling of the English language. I think it's a great idea. As a writer, I'm into words, and punctuation too....

My new novel,Saturday Comes -- A Novel of Love and Vodou, is out, and I am the reigning queen of book autography. I am sitting behind a stack of...

What if Death had style? What if Death wore black sunglasses, liked to dance, smoke cigars and drink rum? What if he loved to indulge in bawdy sexual references (yes, in this case, Death is a he); and what if his presence made people want to party 'til the sun...

Grinning skulls -- human ones; penises -- always erect; rusted coiled metal springs bursting forth from disembodied torsos; burnt doll heads sitting atop bottles or twisted car parts, disturbing eyes shining still-innocent gazes. Powerful, humorous, sometimes scary, often fantastic, always intense, these are the sculptures that hold sway in the...

On the ground in Haiti

Just when you thought there was nothing but bad news and more of it coming out of Haiti, along comes the 2nd Ghetto Biennale 2011 set to take place this December right there in the midst of the rubble.

I kinda love...

That's what a guy in his late 30s said to me at a gas station the other day. I'm 55, and my mostly brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail, exhibiting the very white streak that lives around the crown of my head, and which I stopped dyeing...

"What are you going to do with that tomato?" my husband says to me the other day, suspicion written all over his face.

"It's going in the blender, do you mind?" I say.

"But it's a delicious, super sweet tomato that came from the farmer's market!" he says with a...

Art Mirrors Life.

Part I -- Idea. Birth. New life.

Part II -- Joy. Uncertainty. Upheaval. Hardship. Joy. Uncertainty...

Part III -- Politics. Its impact on the entity created, those it was meant to serve, and its creator.

I could be referring to Obama and the United States, but...

For some time now, I've heard myself saying two things over and over to friends in the course of conversation:

1. Greed is at epidemic proportions
2. Billion is the new million

And then I walked into the Studio City, California-based Fabien Castanier Gallery last weekend and found...

What is it about train wrecks? Why can't otherwise decent people look away from mayhem, blood, end-of-life scenarios and the personal tragedies of fellow human beings? I've been trying to figure out the impulse that drives us to gawk, snicker and develop unhealthy appetites for the media's daily diet of...

1. If you're going to scratch someone, wave your tail first. If someone you know annoys you enough so that you want to pounce, claws first, to make them stop, cover yourself by alerting them that bleeding is likely to occur should they persevere.

2. It is crucial to...

In preparation for the release of Jean Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, I was asked by The Independent Television Service (ITVS), which presents award-winning documentaries on public television and more, to blog about it for Beyond the Box. While I'd like to think...

So the thing is that Haiti is a difficult place right now; but "Haitian art" -- as the entire range of styles, genres and artists has often been reduced to -- is thought of by the uninformed as happy, colorful canvases depicting village scenes, landscapes and jungle animals. There is...

Barbie,

Ken

Like many in Los Angeles, I have seen the billboard with that note in simple black cursive script against a white background dotting the landscape with what must be said is a pretty eye-catching and...

That was the wording on a sticker I saw plastered on the left rear bumper of a beat-up, faded canary-yellow Impala probably manufactured in 1965. On the right side of the bumper another sticker read, Lap dancing is not a crime. Now, why do those two thoughts somehow fit together...

On Christmas day I was unexpectedly stricken with melancholy. I am not given to depression or mood swings. I live a charmed life filled with a loving husband, two adorable pets, supportive family, work I enjoy and more friends than most. Every year there are scores of stories about people...

Several themes have been dancing around inside my head lately. Tiptoeing like a ballerina is the power of art to transform us. A recent New York Times Magazine article on Estonian composer Arvo Pärt described his music as being able to "touch the soul." It was also described...

My friend Mary Argimon called to invite me to a dinner party yesterday. The purpose was to introduce a Maasai warrior she befriended to people she thought would appreciate him and his ongoing project: To eliminate preventable deaths from malaria in his village and surrounding areas; to eradicate female circumcision...