I clearly remember my first exposure to Edgar Degas’ wax sculptures of ballerinas. As a high school graduation gift, my parents sent me on a student trip to France. At 18, I’d heard of the word Impressionism and, being an avid student of dance, I’d seen some of Degas’ behind-the-scenes…
December being a month for merrymaking, I thought it was a good time to introduce the great printmaker and caricaturist, Honoré Daumier, to my blog. I look at his work as an early precursor to comic strips like The Lighter Side of…, by Dave Berg of Mad Magazine. As you’ll…
This week I’ve been looking for something to celebrate and a particular milestone related to this blog stands out. Last Friday’s post was my 200th, a bicentenary of sorts. You may have wondered (as I have) why I maintain this random assortment of loosely coupled brain dumps. The answer isn’t…
While reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast last year, I began to seriously ponder the amount of time the Internet sucks from my life. Learning about this great American author’s early days as a starving artist in Paris, I was struck by the simplicity of his existence. With a bare minimum…
At the end of September, I drove to Detroit to attend a panel discussion featuring two descendants of Vincent van Gogh. Josien van Gogh, Vincent’s great-grandniece, and her daughter, Janne Heling, had come to the Motor City to help kick off a new exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts, titled Van Gogh…
There are so many cool and interesting things happening in the world! Each month, I look forward to sharing some of the fun and informative news items that I’ve come across. Here are my picks for May 2021. In many cases, I provide a link that you can follow to…
While I’ve had this blog for a few years, I didn’t start writing regular posts until the Coronavirus pandemic hit and life ground to a halt. Writing is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but I wasn’t sure I could maintain the pace of producing a post…
Last year I received an email that contained a poem by Jean de La Fontaine, the French poet whose fables are classics of French literature. These poems are delightful and that day, I enjoyed lingering over Le petit Poisson et le Pêcheur. However, what struck me more than the verse…
