Literary Nonfiction. Art. Essays.

Paul Maziar's ONE FOOT is a chatty carousel, covering the last ten years of art in and around Portland, Oregon. Tumbling between observation, reflection, and digression, he tells the stories of what it’s like to be there, in front of that painting, in that art scene, in the second decade of the twenty-first century. This has the great advantage of being a critic’s “first” book, where the reader shares in working out foundational concepts of whatever “art” or “painting” or “writing" is or might be. As Maziar says of Marcel Duchamp’s “shaved” Mona Lisa—“I like that he did this.”

— Jarrett Earnest, author What it Means to Write About Art: Interviews with art critics (2018)

Paul Maziar's new collection, One Foot in the Other World, offers special insight into art's effect on a keenly sensitive mind, that of a poet/critic in the tradition of his heroes such as Bill Berkson, Charles North, and John Yau. These ekphrastic musings, reviews, and pithy philosophical observations reveal an impassioned seeker, whether of existential solace in the desert or aesthetic discovery in aimless urban wanderings. Captivated by his desire for knowledge without certitude, we follow him in his marvelous journey.

— Sue Taylor, art historian, critic, and author of Grant Wood's Secrets (2020)

The world Paul writes about is the one I desire to live in. He is drawn to expressions of fear and vulnerability, to artist weirdos, to the strange beauty behind the experience of not knowing. I found the book transporting.

— Katherine Bradford

With no political or aesthetic agendas to ram down our throats, Maziar’s generous eye detects the best in a varied menagerie of both famous and lesser-known artists and writers. He’s the kind of guide whose quiet enthusiasm one quickly learns to trust.

— Trevor Winkfield, author of Georges Braque & Others: The Selected Art Writings of Trevor Winkfield, 1990-2009 (2014)