Jamison vs. Jamison

THIS IS ONLY AN OPINION, BUT: no one should make art about their divorce until they’ve experienced at least one heartbreak after the marriage’s end. I keep an inventory of all the times I encounter an artist who manages, in telling a story about a divorce, to also include the story of another breakup that followed the supposedly definitive one. I love to see anything that complicates more straightforward accounts of life after divorce. That next heartbreak—the more devastating, the better—must be reckoned with, because it dispels any remaining illusions, or maybe delusions, about what one is

culture September 10, 2014

Worn Stories by Emily Spivack

Clothes are often written off as a waste of time and energy, something to distract us from what really matters. Yet you have to get dressed—or you do if you want to leave the house. In this way, the question of what to wear—of what your clothing choices express to the world, and what they mean to you—is a fundamental one.

Clothes are often written off as a waste of time and energy, something to distract us from what really matters. Yet you have to get dressed—or you do if you want to leave the house. In this way, the question of what to wear—of what your clothing choices express to the world, and what they mean to you—is a fundamental one. And the clothes you pick unavoidably reveal the values and priorities of a given moment, as Emily Spivack has emphasized on her blog for the Smithsonian Museum, Threaded, where she writes about the historical significance of stockings and sequins, dinner jackets and tartans.