I’m posting today about “Bipolar Bare,” a memoir by my friend Carl Davis–a man whom many of you know from his presence as an artist and architect in Los Angeles. As you’ll see, it is not an easy read, but one that I found insightful and rewarding. Because his story is so very personal and […]
Books
The Pilgrim’s Staff
“I am no Rake,” protests the anonymous English gentleman whose two hundred year-old journal falls into the hands of the prominent Los Angeles-based figure painter and avid blogger, David Soames …who is skeptical of the author’s protestation. “No Rake…?” Blog and journal soon begin to mirror each other in an exchange that echoes across the […]
Slow Looking
Slow Looking describes and elaborates on the author’s “One Hour/One Painting” sessions, an idea he developed to practice a different, more profound and more rewarding way of looking at art. It combines the practices of meditation and contemplation, asking participants to sit for a full hour in front of a single work of art. Slow […]
Chiaroscuro
A Mystery, St. Martin’s Press, NY 1985
Modern master painter Jacob Molnar dropped quietly from the art world when he could no longer stomach the hype and greed. But word of murder shatters the peace of his isolated studio…
Mind Work
In this collection of short, highly readable essays Peter Clothier explores his past and present in the effort to discern which parts of his life are essential and which might be left behind. Within the framework of an active Buddhist meditation practice, Mind Work is an authentic search for the creative core through a process […]
Persist
Persist: In Praise of the Creative Spirit in a World Gone Mad with Commerce is a collection of essays spanning thirty years of engagement with the culture of our times. Peter Clothier is a long-time student of the dharma and a meditation practitioner. In this context he examines the qualities of compassion, perseverance, and discernment […]
David Hockney (Modern Masters)
For a contemporary artist of serious aesthetic purpose, David Hockney enjoys immense, perhaps unequaled public visibility: the shock of dyed blond hair, the owlish glasses, and the shy, schoolboy grin are known as much through the popular press as through the journals of the art world. His engaging personality, his quirky but always enlightening ideas about art, and his inexhaustible inventiveness both of imagery and of techniques ranging from oil painting to photography to faxes are captured by Peter Clothier with clear-eyed intelligence and grace in this concise but comprehensive overview.
Dirty-Down
A Thriller. Atheneum, NY, 1987 Welcome to L.A.’s funky, insular art world–where everybody knows absolutely everybody, and inspiration can be… murder. “Stylish and sensuous, an entirely new slant on the L.A. mystery” –Jonathan Kellerman “Nobody writes about the art world with the skill and authority of Peter Clothier” –Lawrence Block Out of print–limited availability Click […]