For dogs, it’s a biscuit, for cats, a spot in the sun. For people – a martini or a massage at the end of the workday, a bonus or vacation for jobs well done. For teachers, it’s student feedback. Today, I opened the student evaluations for the Women Artists’ course I taught in the spring.… Continue reading Rewards
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Oh My, Omai!
One of my favorite portraits is Sir Joshua Reynolds’s portrait of Omai, a Tahitian man in his early twenties. Omai had already led an adventurous life before he met Captain James Cook in 1769 and joined his third voyage, which took him to London in October 1774. Although presented as what John Dryden in his… Continue reading Oh My, Omai!
Road Trip
Do you ever, suddenly, get the compelling urge for a road trip? I apparently do…
Romance
Last week, I sent The Pandemic Year in Paris. A Coming-of-Retirement-Age Memoir to the several generous authors who have kindly consented to read, and perhaps endorse, it in advance of its September publication. Here’s a flashback excerpt from Chapter 1:
Educating Whitie
Long ago, I realized that some of my most memorable experiences were those resulting from my choice to do something alone despite hesitating when I couldn’t find someone to join me. Now, I rarely hesitate. One such event occurred two decades ago when I was temporarily immersed in, really, embraced by, Black American culture…
Teamwork
Gibran observed: “And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms from those who work with joy.” These are the words I remembered during the past few days when I was out-of-town at the home of an avid art collector preparing an exhibition for Fall 2024…
#sadgirl
Do #sadgirl selfies evidence evidence a degree of agency unavailable to affluent 19th-century women, often portrayed as beautifully wan and fragile? Or, do they reinforce Schopenhauerian ideas about feminine psycho-emotional fragility?
Teaser – Prologue
Arriving in Paris in March 2020, fresh from an eight-week long, solo, soul-searching retreat that took me from the frozen forests of Quebec to the cloud forests of Costa Rica, I found myself stranded and without income in a series of incremental incidents that transformed my carefully planned near-future…
The Lone Pelican
Sometimes incidental observations transport me to unexpected trains of thought. That’s what happened recently…
The Wise Bird
In 1893, Norwegian artist Gerhard Munthe made a watercolor design for a tapestry, one of many. His subject, The Wise Bird, illustrated a Norwegian legend about a king who sought advice from a Wise Bird living in the chestnut forest beside his castle instead of from his courtiers. Munthe pictured the king engaged in conversation with… Continue reading The Wise Bird