That's Good Reading: Fully Credited Links

A nice appreciation of the naturalist paintings of French Huguenot painter Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (c. 1533–1588): Like spring flowers, his art resurfaced, April 23, by Christopher Andreae in the Christian Science Monitor. As more of his art becomes known, it gets sold off, as some of his paintings were, at Sotheby's in January (covered by Catherine Bindman's Art Market Watch for Artnet on February 4). The British Museum has a watercolor of his called Wallflowers, a Butterfly and a Snail, made when he was back in London, around 1585.

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A short excerpt from an article, National Endowment for the Arts and Crafts Criticized for Funding Giant Macramé Penis, April 21, in The Onion:

The macramé penis is Kahle's first phallic work of art and craft to receive media attention. His other major works include a shoebox diorama titled "Abe Lincoln In The Bathtub," a 13-foot-tall newspaper and poster-paint papier-mâché penis titled "What's Black And White And Red All Over?," and "Pin(whee)ls," a collection of 200 pinwheels made of construction paper, pencils, and clippings from pornographic magazines.

"If people took the time to explore 'Father (By Mother),' there would be no controversy," Kahle said. "The piece is not prurient. The true meaning of the piece is located on its head, where glitter was applied with Elmer's Glue. Every speck of glitter is a tiny mirror reflecting the observer. At end, this piece is about love, sex, birth: what we came from."

"Sexuality has always been part of the art-and-craft world," Griffin wrote. "To strip a work of string art or a pine-cone mobile of its inherent libidinous content is to destroy it."

In the words of Homer Simpson, "it's funny because it's funny!"

UPDATE:
Thanks to Tyler Green at Modern Art Notes, for trying to pass this article off as serious, which plays into the story of articles from the Onion being believed as real news.

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From Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof at artblog, a comparison of arts funding in Philadelphia and London (Why Philadelphia is not London in spite of double decker buses, April 26). They report that Philadelphia plans to cut over $2 million from the city's arts budget: I'm still hoping that some brave presidential candidate will read the Ionarts Proposal (March 28) and give me a reason to vote for him. Congratulations to Roberta and Libby on the first birthday of their blog!

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I loved reading the now defunct blog of the Invisible Adjunct: as a Ph.D. in musicology who is still (theoretically) searching for a university position, I am naturally sympathetic to her point of view. Now, the Chronicle of Higher Education has done a profile on her (Scott Smallwood, Disappearing Act, in the April 30 issue) that maintains her anonymity and is really a commentary on what has happened to the academic system:

Read through a year's worth of Invisible Adjunct posts and you will get a good glimpse at what's happening in higher education, at least in terms of graduate school, the job market in the humanities, and the adjunct world. Her advice in a nutshell: Think long and hard before going to grad school in the humanities. Then think some more.

She believes that academe's cheerleaders should stop pretending that the Ph.D. is good preparation for other types of careers. It's not, she says. Being smart and stubborn enough to get through a Ph.D. program may mean you're smart and stubborn enough for lots of other things, but the actual Ph.D. is peculiar to an academic career. (She would, however, support redesigning master's programs to create practical graduate education for nonacademics.)

This is exactly what I try to tell anyone who asks me for advice about going to graduate school. Thanks to Butterflies and Wheels for the link.