Tag Archives: art

Late for class

There are times when I completely lose the thread. That’s my only excuse for forgetting to tell you about my painting classes in Rockport, which start next Tuesday. These classes will run from 10 AM to 1 PM in my Rockport studio. The session is six weeks long, and the fee is $230. If you’re […]

Trumpery and fantasy

There’s something disconcerting about a presidential candidate whose wife has been photographed in the nude, who has himself been painted in the nude (albeit critically). A single election cycle ago, naked selfies of a political spouse would have doomed a candidate. However, one can’t be embarrassed if one feels no shame. Since that’s how many of us […]

Black stovepipes and blacker dogs

I am out of small toned canvases, so I took a 9X12 with me to paint my quick sketch at Rockport harbor. It’s, well, sketchy, but I needed to be done by noon. As I painted, I watched a man playing fetch with his dog, a tiny little ball of black fur named Moose. As I was packing […]

Why I never get anything done

Imagine the housewife in, say, 1910, making her morning coffee. She comes down the back stairs to empty the ashes from the woodstove and stir what coals are left. After coaxing the embers into life, she might hazard the inside pump, or, if she is a fatalist, she just goes for the jug of water […]

The three little propagandists

Yesterday I read the Disney version of “The Three Little Pigs” to my grandson. Everyone knows this story, right? The original story was first printed in the 1840s, but is—like most European folktales—much older. Disney’s print version derives from a 1933 cartoon. The version I read to Jake was copyrighted in 1948. In many ways it’s […]