Jane Howard

1 week ago | theguardian.com | Jane Howard

On a recent Sunday afternoon, with a few hours up my sleeve, I decided: I want to see a Rothko. I wasn’t in the mood to wander around the gallery, spending a couple of minutes with hundreds of pieces of art. I just wanted to find the Rothko at the National Gallery of Victoria, stand in front of it for 10 minutes, and then go outside again to enjoy the sunshine. We’re extraordinarily lucky in Australia that the permanent collections at our state galleries are free to attend.

1 week ago | inkl.com | Jane Howard

‘Standing in front of it during my recent visit, I found myself dwarfed by the painting’ … Mark Rothko's work Untitled (Red) on display in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, Australia. Photograph: Liz Sunshine On a recent Sunday afternoon, with a few hours up my sleeve, I decided: I want to see a Rothko. I wasn’t in the mood to wander around the gallery, spending a couple of minutes with hundreds of pieces of art.

Mar 11, 2025 | theguardian.com | Jane Howard

As the sun set on day three of Womadelaide, under the bat colony at Tainmuntilla (Botanic Park), the audience were in a trance. Brooklyn-based Colombian musician Ela Minus mixed her voice with synthesisers, prompting a roar from the crowd; strobe lighting pulsed over the moving mass of bodies. The surrounding pine trees somehow seemed to make the reverb echo even stronger, lifting us up through the canopy to the open stars above. Minus’ music is complex and expansive, pop music meets house.

Feb 10, 2025 | theguardian.com | Jane Howard

I am a voracious reader, but it is easy to feel there are too many books in the world. How do you find the time to keep up with all those new releases? To say nothing of the overwhelm that comes from even stepping in a bookshop. There you’re faced with not only the latest titles but also the classics you’ve missed and the biographies you hadn’t heard of but find yourself drawn to. The library is the same – the masses of books too frequently inspires inertia.

Jan 1, 2025 | theguardian.com | Jane Howard

I am a bad runner. OK, maybe not “bad”. I get out there, I do it. But I am slow and plodding. I’ll bargain with myself to just run a short 3km. The farthest I have ever run is 6km – and it happened because I was heading to a pub at the other end. One of the things they try to sell you on when you start running is “runner’s high”: that magical sense of euphoria you get from really pushing your body.