Monthly Archives: February 2015

The Greatest Painter Who Never Lived

The Facts of Life, Norman Rockwell It’s a sad fact that in the United States one can defame the reputation of a dead person with impunity and his or her loved ones and heirs can do nothing to stop it. Such is the case with Deborah Solomon’s American Mirror: the Life and Art of Norman […]

Frozen beauty

Thin sheet ice at the harbor in Baltimore, MD. (Photo courtesy of Emerson Champion.) The Great Lakes are a continuous channel of fat parts (the lakes) and straits (the Niagara, St. Lawrence and St. Mary’s Rivers and the Straits of Mackinac). A sort of inland sea, they contain 21% of the world’s surface fresh water […]

This blog is on a two-hour snow delay

Shadow on Frankfort Barren, 1982, Neil Welliver Last week was historically the coldest week of the year. That should be a relief, but we’ve got at least another week of subzero weather on the forecast. The whole northeast has struggled with snow and extreme cold this winter. Anyone who watches the weather recognizes this as […]

Decentralization

No museum keeps its whole collection on display. Meeting between Emperor Wen and Fisherman Lü Shang, 16th century, attributed to Kano Takanobu, is only available via the internet or if the Metropolitan will opens their vaults to us. Yesterday I wrote about an articulated doll found in an ancient sarcophagus in 1964. This story recently […]

Oh, baby

No neck, no breasts, long limbs and very wide hips. How could a little Roman girl hope to live up to this? A photo of an articulated ivory doll found in 1964 in Rome has recently made the rounds on the internet. The doll is part of the funeral dowry of a little girl laid […]

Changing visions

At the Milliner’s Shop, Edgar Degas, between 1905 and 1910. Stanford opthamologist Michael Marmor has written two books on eye disease and famous artists. He focuses on Edgar Degas and Claude Monet and raises the question of whether their declining eyesight materially changed their painting. Degas suffered retinal disease as he aged and Monet had […]

You should see the other guy

Yesterday I had surgery to correct ptosis of the eyelids, an inherited trait that impinges on my vision. Being terminally optimistic, I’ve underestimated the down time. “Two days of assiduous icing and I’ll be right as rain. In the meantime, I’ll stay in bed and read,” I thought. I didn’t count on my eyes being […]

Gone shopping

A good studio-center location should have rocks and sea and sunsets… Yesterday I wrote about my property search this week in Maine. What does this mean for my painting and my students? I’ve worked with some fine properties over the years. Unfortunately, some have gone out of business and some have changed their business structure. […]

Driving, me crazy!

Rainy Day on Penobscot Bay, oil on canvas, 10X8. Yesterday morning was so cold that the electronics in my Prius failed. My husband, a computer programmer, held down the power button for fifteen seconds and it rebooted. What motivates a person to be in Maine in these conditions? I am in search of real estate. […]

Just this

The Sea of Ice (Das Eismeer), 1823-24, Casper David Friedrich. Imagine that’s the MassPike, and my wee little Prius on the right… This weekend I drove to Maine in a blizzard. No, it wasn’t the Snowpocalypse that had been predicted by breathless news readers, but it was a nice New England ripper of a snowstorm. […]