Allison
-
Modernist New York Map
There’s a brand new map for your summer wanders! I worked on the Modernist New York Map with Blue Crow Media that guides you to over 50 sites across the five boroughs, from sleek skyscrapers to futuristic churches, and has beautiful photographs by Jason Woods. It was fun to do the writing and research for this and…
-
New Museum for Brooklyn
I reported for the Art Newspaper on an 18th-century house in Brooklyn that is becoming its neighborhood’s first museum. As a bonus it links salt marshes to the rise of NYC. Read all about it here!
-
On Poisonous Books
The summer issue of Fine Books & Collections magazine that I edited is now out! There are stories on poisonous books (no surprise I wrote that one), the secret art of letterlocking, literary travels in Portugal, road trip photography, and so much more. I’m extra proud of how this one turned out.
-
Forest Lawn Celebration
I was an honor to be invited up to Buffalo to be the keynote speaker for Forest Lawn Cemetery’s 175th celebrations. I also helped lead a trolley tour of sites at the cemetery as we explored deeper our evolving relationship with the grave. You can find more photos here!
-
Up All Night Interview
Artist and typewriter-er extraordinaire Tim Youd invited me to talk on his Up All Night St. Louis radio show. You can find it archived here with plenty of other good conversations for your ears.
-
Forest Lawn Cemetery Event
I’m excited to be going up to Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery to be the keynote speaker for its 175th anniversary celebration! The May 10 event will have an opportunity to join both a talk about how the grave has changed over time and a cemetery visit where we will see Forest Lawn through that context.…
-
Cemetery Angels Zine
I created a new zine—Follow Me: Angel Guides of the Victorian Cemetery—with my photographs of guiding angels from Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery and an essay on what this 19th-century iconography means in the history of how we remember our dead. It’s inspired by an article I wrote in 2018 for the Offing and features full-page photographs…
-
Cemetery Rediscovered
For the Art Newspaper, I reported on a cemetery for enslaved people that has been rediscovered at Andrew Jackson’s Tennessee plantation: The legacy of slavery has always been entwined with the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s 1,000-acre Tennessee plantation. There, about ten miles north-east of downtown Nashville, remnants of the quarters formerly inhabited by people enslaved by…
-
Raw Vision Feature
For the Winter 24-25 issue of Raw Vision magazine, I contributed a feature about the late self-taught artist Jesse Aaron who was inspired by the trees around his Florida home. As he often stated, “The wood will tell you what to do.” You can read an excerpt online and find the full story in the…
-
ArtDesk Cover Story
For the winter issue of ArtDesk, I wrote the cover story on artist Edgar Heap of Birds and his upcoming exhibition in Oklahoma City. Read it online and in print!
-
The Revival of Matta-Clark’s Rosebush
For the Art Newspaper, I reported on the restoration of Gordon Matta-Clark’s caged rosebush that has been hiding in plain sight in the East Village for over 50 years: In a brief yet prolific career that ended with his death at age 35 in 1978, Gordon Matta-Clark responded to the neglect of New York City’s…
-
Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Zines
Each December over the past four years, I’ve done a mailing project for my friends involving a choose-your-own adventure story (made via the Kafkaesque infrastructure of a Google Form). I started to do it in 2020 when, for obvious reasons, I found myself feeling isolated from many people I care for and also was trying…
-
Restoring a Cemetery Grassland
While I was in Australia earlier this year, I got interested in how part of Melbourne General Cemetery was being restored from its colonial Victorian landscape to a native grassland. The story is now in American Cemetery & Cremation magazine in print and online!
-
Surrealism Reading List
Surrealism is turning 100 this year! For JSTOR Daily, I created a reading list about all the many aspects of this artistic and literary movement, from its connections to communism to its legacy in contemporary art like Afrosurrealism. Explore it here.
-
New Zines!
I had some fun making new zines for the fall, including a short one on the strange presence of the Fiji mermaid in museums around the world as well as mini zines on pet cemetery epitaphs, witch marks, lost museums of NYC, and ancient NYC public art. You can find them all on my Etsy!
-
Saving the Legacy of an Art Environment
For the Art Newspaper, I reported on the how the former home of the late artist L. V. Hull in Kosciusko, Mississippi, is being preserved as the town’s first visual arts center. It’s also the very first art environment by an African American artist to be added to the National Register. Read all about it…
-
Augmented Reality & Cemeteries
I explored how augmented reality is being used in cemeteries around the world for American Cemetery & Cremation magazine, from visualizing past borders of segregation to honoring military graves. Find the story online and in print!
-
Story on Museum Expansion
For the Art Newspaper, I went to the Blanton Museum at the University of Texas at Austin and reported on its new expansion, where community, city, and the arts are all coming together. Read all about it here!
-
New Book Incoming!
I’m excited to share that I’ll be writing a book for one of my favorite series: 33 1/3! If you’re unfamiliar, the Bloomsbury series features compact books each dedicated to a single album. My contribution will be about Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads. Keep an eye out for updates as I get started.
-
Story for ArtDesk
For the spring issue of ArtDesk, I wrote about Loie Hollowell’s work and how the “curving forms and luminous colors of the native Californian evoke the abstraction of artists who emerged in the twentieth century.” Read the full story both online and in print!
-
Restored Rock Garden
I covered the restoration of Minnesota’s Itasca Rock Garden for Raw Vision magazine. The elaborate environment of follies and foliage was started in 1925 by a farmer and now almost a century later it has been returned to much of its former glory. You can read an excerpt of the story online and find the…
-
Dance of Death Essay
For the Public Domain Review, I wrote an essay on the dance of death in centuries of art, particularly in printmaking where it has been used as a rapid response to war, disease, and other crises. Read it here!
-
Spooky Paris Tour
I’m excited that this October I’m helping to co-lead a Morbid Anatomy tour of Paris with tarot scholar Laetitia Barbier. It will run from October 10 to 15 and we will visit unusual sights like the carnival arts museum, alchemical history locales, and of course cemeteries. A few tickets still remain!
-
Keith Haring Mural Conservation
For the Art Newspaper, I covered the conservation of a mural Keith Haring painted in 1989 in an Iowa City school. It’s on view to the public for the first time before it will be returned to its permanent place in the school. Read all about it here!
-
Cemetery Symbolism Class
On Sundays from August 4 to 25, I’ll be teaching an online class with Morbid Anatomy called “Speak with the Dead: A Crash Course in Understanding Cemetery Symbolism.” We’ll explore symbolism from ancient rites up to the modern age. Sign up here!
-
Reflecting on NYC’s Dutch Heritage
What does NYC’s Dutch heritage mean 400 years on? I explored the complicated legacy of New Amsterdam through historic houses that are reflecting on how their structures tell stories of slavery and colonialism as part of the founding of what became New York City. Read the piece on the Art Newspaper.
-
Language of Flowers Walk
On Saturday, June 9, I’ll be returning to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn for a walk exploring the language of flowers. We’ll see tombs that reflect the Victorian fascination with floral symbolism and decode the meaning of the blooms. Get tickets here!
-
Impressionism Reading List
For JSTOR Daily, I put together a reading list timed with the 150th anniversary of the Impressionist art movement. Read about everything from the importance of synthetic pigments to the influence of Japanese art!
-
Salvation of a Prophet’s House
For the Art Newspaper, I covered the conservation and opening to the public of the Prophet Isaiah’s Second Coming House in Niagara Falls, New York. It’s an incredible, kaleidoscopic house adorned inside and out with Isaiah Robertson’s art. Read all about it here!
-
Spring 2024 Issue of Fine Books
The spring 2024 issue of Fine Books & Collections that I edited is out now! It includes stories on visual depictions of the arctic, bird field guides, doll house libraries, and much more. I also wrote its feature on the new library at the AMNH and why science needs libraries. Pick up a copy here.