Lorraine Tady’s oeuvre gives me an opiody buzz. The University of Texas at Dallas professor’s fierce lines and rabid colors cooly embrace the rectangle, and fire visual ideas at the brain like a cyclone blasting cherry tree buds in spring. And I’ll go ahead and say it: Tady “paints like a man.” Don’t shoot me, PC pals, and hang on ’til we’re through. Because Tady has heard this often. Lorraine Tady, Stellation Field, Parapet, UV ink on canvas, 72×60 inches. Her works have a masculine edginess. They delight in boundary-making, visual systems, and penetrating line. You’d be hard-pressed to find anything curvaceous in her work. But her personality offers a consistent counterpoint to emotions these formal investigations conjure. Deeply empathic and sensitive, there was an easy joy in threshing ideas about art and life with her as we sat down to coffee on a cold afternoon before Christmas.