Praxis Makes Perfect

Articles by recent MFA grads exploring the next steps in their lives and careers

Praxis Makes Perfect

On Landlines

Praxis Makes Perfect

On Landlines

Columnist Erin Sweeny ponders the “evolving network” engendered by a temporary art space-cum-subway station newsstand.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Topography of Time

Praxis Makes Perfect

Topography of Time

As she settles into her new home in Brooklyn, columnist Erin Sweeny reflects on a year of wandering after graduate school.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Welcome to the Funhouse: Mike Kelley’s “Mobile Homestead”

Praxis Makes Perfect

Welcome to the Funhouse: Mike Kelley’s “Mobile Homestead”

“Mobile Homestead,” a project by the late Mike Kelley, has a new permanent home in Detroit. Columnist Erin Sweeny revisits this “fitting tribute” to the artist.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | New Situationist City

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | New Situationist City

“Considering the search for meaningful engagement in a society that feels increasingly fragmented, certain aspects of Situationist theory are more topical than ever.”

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Where Does the Art Happen?

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Where Does the Art Happen?

Kelsey Elisabeth Nelson asks what’s so important about erasure?

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Lure of the Line

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Lure of the Line

Writing from an artist residency program in Santa Fe, Erin Sweeny contemplates “the natural phenomena” of New Mexico and its “striking horizon lines.”

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Let the Kids Ride

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Let the Kids Ride

Antonius Wiriadjaja draws connections between Chris Jordan’s clock tower installation in Queens, graduate school, and the Helsinki Bus Station Theory.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | High Time: On Ritual and Duration

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | High Time: On Ritual and Duration

Erin Sweeny explores flexibility and self-imposed structure in the lives of artists and in recent artworks on view at SITE Santa Fe.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Chicken Soup (for Those Who Love Art)

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Chicken Soup (for Those Who Love Art)

Is there a fundamental difference between the Maker Movement and the kind of hands-on learning that already happens in most museums?

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | The World Is Not Flat

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | The World Is Not Flat

Open Enrollment’s Erin Sweeny writes eloquently about physical motion in the lives of young artists and the “emotional gravity wrapped up in movement.”

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | No Rest for the Teaching Artist

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | No Rest for the Teaching Artist

Antonius Wiriadjaja on helping two artists prepare for their upcoming shows in New York City.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Taking Stock

Praxis Makes Perfect

Taking Stock

As the calendar approaches the year’s end, Kelsey Elisabeth Nelson takes a reflective look at change while taking stock, even if it means to “retrofit.”

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | In The Long Run

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | In The Long Run

Erin Sweeny looks at the role that failure and the unexpected plays in sustaining an art practice over the long run.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Animating Passion

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Animating Passion

Antonius Wiriadjaja visits the studio of famed puppeteer Lou Nasti, whose mechanical displays and animated objects have captivated audiences worldwide.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Yes, We Insist

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Yes, We Insist

During a trip to Chicago after President Obama’s re-election, Erin Sweeny realizes that the pursuits of art and politics may not be as far apart as they seem.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Having It Both Ways

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Having It Both Ways

Kelsey Nelson delves into Vladimir Nabokov’s and Roland Barthes’ diametrically opposed methods of interpreting art and texts, and asks, is it possible to have it both ways?

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Disorderly Conduct: The Imperfect Librarians

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Disorderly Conduct: The Imperfect Librarians

Erin Sweeny on the “new Order” governing her post-graduate life, where any sense of normalcy or routine has largely disappeared.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Repeat Repeat Repeat

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Repeat Repeat Repeat

Antonius Wiriadjaja reflects on the meaning of a quote from playwright Anna Deavere Smith: “If you say a word often enough, it becomes you.”

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | A Good Wind: Forces of Nature in the New Age of Innocence

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | A Good Wind: Forces of Nature in the New Age of Innocence

How can artists and other cultural practitioners create the spaces they need to work and to exhibit? In part, says Erin Sweeny, by forming those spaces themselves, through partnerships and collaborations.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Why the Meta Matters

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Why the Meta Matters

Kelsey Elisabeth Nelson explains why even the most cryptic work of art gains meaning when we question the steps that brought it to where it resides.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Carrying Home

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Carrying Home

Erin Sweeny reflects on the varied meanings of home, partly by way of Mike Kelley’s “Mobile Homestead,” a full-size replica of his Michigan childhood home.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Touched

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Touched

Antonius Wiriadjaja presents his “Gamelan Sampul,” a laptop sleeve that also acts as a musical instrument, at Sony Wonder Technology Lab in NYC.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Vulnerability of the View

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Vulnerability of the View

Erin Sweeny uses the literal and metaphorical framework of sunglasses to reflect on Los Angeles, its art scene, and her current role as an observer of and participant in it.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | A is for Aphorism

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | A is for Aphorism

Kelsey Nelson shares five platitudes that ring surprisingly true when considered in the context of her own post-graduate ambitions.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | How To Build A Fire

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | How To Build A Fire

New “Praxis Makes Perfect” columnist Erin Sweeny earned her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art last spring; she shares what’s happened in her life since then.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Meet Our New “Praxis Makes Perfect” Columnists!

Praxis Makes Perfect

Meet Our New “Praxis Makes Perfect” Columnists!

Meet the newest contributors to our “Praxis Makes Perfect” column!

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Creative Criticism with Christopher K. Ho | Hirsch E.P. Rothko

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Creative Criticism with Christopher K. Ho | Hirsch E.P. Rothko

Jacquelyn Gleisner talks to Christopher K. Ho, an artist, critic, and author of “Hirsch E.P. Rothko,” a book about an artist’s dip into delusion.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | How to Rule the Art World

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | How to Rule the Art World

Jeffrey Songco looks at the multiple roles he and other artists often perform–blogger, critic, curator–and how those activities inform and build on one another.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | HELP!

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | HELP!

Jacquelyn Gleisner talks to artist and writer Bean Gilsdorf, who pens the weekly HELP DESK arts-advice column on Daily Serving’s website.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Collaboration: Whale of a Time!

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Collaboration: Whale of a Time!

What can artists learn by collaborating with others? Jeffrey Songco wants to find out–and finds unlikely inspiration in a group of killer whales.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Becoming Colossal with Blogger Christopher Jobson

Praxis Makes Perfect

Becoming Colossal with Blogger Christopher Jobson

What can blogging do for the arts? Jacquelyn Gleisner profiles an art and design blog run by Christopher Jobson that shows the vast potential of this medium.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | When I Was Your Age

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | When I Was Your Age

As Jeffrey Songco wryly reveals, a productive studio day for a social-media-savvy artist doesn’t necessarily involve the making of art.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Trial & Error: On Teaching with Beverly Fishman

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Trial & Error: On Teaching with Beverly Fishman

How do artists sustain both a studio practice and a full-time teaching career? Beverly Fishman, Head of Painting at Cranbrook, shares some hard-won knowledge.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | You Teach Some, You Learn Some

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | You Teach Some, You Learn Some

In the post-graduate world, artist Jeffrey Songco discovers that good teachers come in many forms.

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Draw the Devil from this Boy

Praxis Makes Perfect

Praxis Makes Perfect | Draw the Devil from this Boy

Traveling to India on a Fulbright scholarship, David MacLean woke up in a train station with no passport and no idea who he was. An excerpt from his forthcoming memoir.

Praxis Makes Perfect

The Top 10 New Media Moments of 2011

Praxis Makes Perfect

The Top 10 New Media Moments of 2011

Songco shares ten memorable pop-culture gems from 2011, all infinitely re-playable courtesy the Internet.