What timing: Artist "Peter Keegan was commissioned to mark the 10th anniversary of the Waterside Theatre, in Aylesbury, in 2020. Within weeks, all theatres in the UK closed due to the pandemic, but the artist continued to paint." And he painted the tentative return as well. - BBC
It's no substitute for school boards heartily not banning books or libraries being funded, but Boise's Rediscovered Books gave away copies of the banned books at a suburban coffee shop in the nearby town of Nampa. - NPR
In the comics, Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel)'s "infectious charm and steadfast strength slayed her nemeses in vivid color through the pages, her character unapologetically bucking the negative stereotypes impressed upon Muslim Americans." The TV show may do the same. - HuffPost
Great that some people - including some artists who have been able to eke out a living at qualifying nonprofits or colleges - can get theirs forgiven after 10 years. But what about freelancers and those who cobble together an existence in the service of art? - Hyperallergic
It sure feels like that sometimes. But "if nothing ever changes, then we are all locked inside the iron cage of the present tense. ... There’s no agency. No choice." - LitHub
"Success for me isn’t that we can sell out 92 percent of the house, it’s that we can sell out a run of Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron. That’s success in an audience. Our audience is loyal. They come back. They are stimulated and entertained at the same time." - Van Magazine
It's a history of Caravaggio's wild escapades and violent temper, a tale of armed knights bursting in to a cardinal's palace, and then a lot of centuries of who knows what, before they ended up in Avignon. - History Today
Of course, it's also paying out millions (and there are the people who left the service over its podcasting contracts with right-wing figures). But the company believes they'll start making a profit from podcasts, and their associated ads, very soon. - The Hollywood Reporter
The pitch from ruangrupa: "The lumbung, the common rice store traditionally found in Indonesian villages, built and shared by everyone. They wanted Documenta to be a lumbung, treating artists as partners and creating resources that would live on beyond the show." - The New York Times
Merryl Goldberg hand-encoded names, addresses, and other details of the Phantom Orchestra, a group of Jewish refuseniks and Christian activists trying to help Jews and others escape the USSR, in composition notebooks - hidden from the prying eyes of Soviet officials. - Wired
Theresa Ruth Howard, guest curating at the Kennedy Center, "envisioned gathering an international lineup of dancers for something that’s rare in the traditional ballet world: to work in a space where being Black is the norm rather than the exception." - MSN (Washington Post)
"The smile has always been with us then, and it would appear it's always been the same. It seems only one step further to claim that the smile has no history. But this would be far from the truth. In fact, the smile has a fascinating, if much-neglected past." - Aeon
As offices relocated to, well, every employee's home, a lot of new and relatively inexpensive space opened up across the country. Public media took notice. - Current
Well, at least in Australia: both researchers and museum execs there report that attendance goes up when it's rainy, and new-ish major arts festivals during the antipodean winter are pulling in crowds, even in chilly Tasmania. - Arts Hub (Australia)
That is, they should consider the benefits of becoming creative therapists. After all, art, performance, and (especially) music-based therapies have a lot of research-based backing as effective. And, importantly, therapy can be a consistent source of income for artists. - ArtsHub
