Fall is finally here, after a heat-addled summer in SoCal. I hope we don’t have any more of those 100-degree temps, because some of us don’t have central air, and it was brutal throughout August and September. On those hottest days I told myself, autumn is coming....
Fame There are some people who can barely be tolerated in person but are beloved as fictional characters. One reads about them in a book or watches them on a screen, and one feels special because one recognizes their beauty. But when one meets them in person, one...
Dear Babs: I’m an artist who uses industrial materials like spray paint, epoxy and fiberglass in my oil paintings. I use a respirator and my studio has decent ventilation, but I know it’s not the best. Recently, my doctor raised concerns about potential long-term...
Dear Reader, I have good news and bad news. Let’s start with the bad news: This, after 18 years, is my last editor’s letter. What an incredible journey it has been. Here’s the good news: Artillery will still carry on! More on that later. I started this magazine with...
Here’s something different: I am going to talk about the Olympics that were opening in Paris as I wrote this column. Especially exciting were the athletes floating down the Seine in a series of boats—so improbable, but so original, and so picturesque against the...
Liam Young is an Australian-born speculative architect and world-builder who constructs digital models of potential futures. With a background in architecture, his designs are grounded in plausible science and technology. Young’s Planet City envisions a future where...
Dear Babs, Our daughter is starting a BFA program at a small, prestigious art college this fall. What are some things we can do to support her during her first semester? —Striving to Support in Seattle Dear Striving, When I was in college, my dad would mail me...
Licking Time There’s a fortune to be made thinking about licking the bare upper thigh of historical figures. The way the first person gave up all hope echoes in everyone everywhere forever. Wearing animal print, and writing poems one can get close to the world licking...
Dear Reader, As a kid, I didn’t get to do much traveling. The family trips we took were always by car to visit relatives, somehow miraculously fitting seven of us into a big two-toned Oldsmobile. My dad used to roll down the window, just a sliver, to blow out the...
Three Major Shows: Starring Black Women Artists Right now in Los Angeles, we have the gift of important shows of three major contemporary Black women artists. Try to see them all, as this fortuitous alignment of stars may not happen again, at least not anytime soon....
Dear Babs, I’m a young artist with an MFA from a decent Midwestern university, and I want to become more aware and part of the international artistic milieu. From social media, it seems like most of the influential people in the art world spend a ton of time...
Receipt Bus stops are one full breath apart Is why men drink in them. Their poor slow hearts, Their poor slow blood. Leant on elbows on knees they Hawk up galaxies. The car becomes a well when you Cry there. 24h carpark. —Without my Marrow and the wind blows I’m a...
Dear Reader, In the early Artillery days, I assigned a writer to critique the films and videos that were showing in the sprawling 2007 MOCA exhibition, “WACK!: Art and the Feminist Revolution.” There were more than 20 films and videos included, mostly viewed on the...
I don’t know about you, but I’m still recovering from Frieze LA (Feb. 29–March 3), and the art week that was. In addition to the main event, there were many gallery openings and events, and also the Felix and Spring/ Break art fairs. At Frieze there were fewer...
Chalk Poem The long cool freedom pure as a stick of chalk powdering against the edge of jealousy hard and green, also cool a tongue in your mouth an equation in your mind about where purity goes as it’s clapped against a tree trunk, the side of a building leaving...
Dear Babs, I graduated with an MFA in painting two years ago and while I have a decent record of solo and group shows under my belt, I don’t really make any money from sales of my work. I have a stable job as a bartender that pays the bills, and I’m all right...
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