Through the Window, JMW Turner, and Being Outdoors

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Pictures through the Window

I always try to gather up the best pictures taken through my office window toward the end of the month. We had more birds at the feeder at the beginning of the month; it was cool and there weren’t as many insects for the omnivorous birds. There are 11 birds in all….and a tree… in the collection for May 2020.

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The Red-bellied Woodpeckers are frequent visitors. The male even did some foraging on the ground under our neighbor’s pines.

The female has started getting a seed from the feeder then wedging it in a nearby crack in the deck railing to peck and crack open. There are times I think she knows I am watching.

The Cowbirds are still around. The males come in groups, but the female is the one I see at the feeder most often.

The Downy Woodpecker comes frequently as well although it comes in silent – unlike the red-bellies.

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The finches (House and Gold) are around – but less frequently than they were in April. I’m not sure why other than they are busy with their nests and finding other food sources.

And then there were the Indigo Buntings. They were somewhere else by mid-month.

The Cardinal pair is around all through the year.

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The only picture of a Titmouse I took this month was a very round bird. Maybe it was just the angle.

The Carolina Wrens are the big singers around our deck.

The Mourning Doves sometimes use the deck railing for a mating platform. I didn’t know what the bird I photographed was doing with its tail, but I suspected it was mating related. It was the only dove around…it eventually stood up and flew off.

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Recently we’ve had an uptick in House Sparrows coming to the feeder. They seem to come in small groups of 2-4 birds. Maybe they are gearing up for a second brood of the season.

Finally, is the tulip poplar. The later-than-usual frosts we had this year didn’t seem to reduce the number of flowers. We’ll have plenty of gutter-clogging seeds flying next winter, and spring!

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Unique activities for yesterday:

Gorging on JMW Turner (1775-1851) art. 344 paintings are packed in a slideshow available from Internet Archive here. Wow…what a range of works he produced. I selected 4 different works as examples. The slide show is well worth a look.

Being Outdoors. I’ve established a new goal – be outdoors for at least an hour every day. This time of year, that should not be hard since the weather is relatively pleasant. This is more about increasing consistency and logging what I do than dramatically increasing my outdoor time…although I tend let weather deter my getting out. I know I feel better physically and emotionally on days I am outdoors for at least an hour. As it gets hotter, I’ll shift to the morning – before the heat of the day becomes oppressive. It doesn’t have to be working in the yard, taking a walk, or hiking in the forest behind out house. It can be reading a book, doing something on my laptop or just enjoying some quality time with our cat on the enclosed/screened deck! In my first foray after establishing the goal, I selected pictures for this blog post, made two Zentangle tiles for the Zentangle prompt, cleaned the table on the deck, occasionally made eye contact with the cat, and cleaned out/filled the birdbaths…and it added up to more than an hour - easy.

A Zentangle Prompt

Try the SeZ pattern. The pattern starts by using seeds (maybe real ones like sesame or rice or bulgur wheat) or making random dots.

Here is a page I made based on yesterday’s prompt: Experiment with the MAELSTROM pattern. I used the May 2020 page from the Audubon calendar. It provided lots of spaces to experiment with the pattern. I tend to like the random usage of the pattern…and the curved part of the pattern although I did start thinking about radio waves coming down to a radio telescope for the other part of the pattern. Using the calendar page was a good experience and I’m thinking of using the page for June to show the prompt for each day…maybe showing the page as I fill  in each week as we move through the month.

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Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/28/2020 – Little Celebrations

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

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Making echinoderm prompted Zentangle® tiles. Jurassic echinoderms France is full of plates and worth browsing; it’s available on Internet Archive here. Four sample images are below. I’ve only made one Zentangle so far but I’m sure the patterns will pop up in the tiles I make over the next few days.

Starting the What is Contemporary Art? Coursera course. It is my 3rd class from MoMA. For some reason – I am interested in classes that are different from my typical science or history classes I’ve taken in non-pandemic years.

Watching a Glenn Randall Photography webinar on light for landscape photographers. It was something my husband found out about and set up for us. We watched on the television in the den. Now I have some vocabulary for some of the type of light I enjoy early or late in the day! I realized that some of the wonderful light on the sandhill cranes in the early mornings at Bosque del Apache is ‘glow light’ from the sun 20 minutes away from coming up behind us.

Making sweet potato custard. Probably my favorite food creation during our ‘stay at home as much as possible’ time has been sweet potato custard. This is the second time I’ve made it. I cook the sweet potato in the oven when we are baking something else…then peel it and save it in the refrigerator until I’m ready to make the custard. The sweet potato goes into the Ninja food processor with 4 eggs, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon cloves and 1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (this time I was trying to use up some powdered sugar so I used the higher amount). After processing and scrapping down the sides, I add in enough almond milk to make the consistency about right….processing again to get it thoroughly blended. After pouring it into the backing dish, I cover the top with chopped pecans. It cooks for 15 minutes at 425 degrees and 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

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It never lasts long since both my husband and I like it a lot.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for the monthly post about 10 little celebrations. Again – the overwhelming celebration (the same as in March) is that in April 2020

Everyone in my family (in Maryland, Missouri, and Texas) is well…and taking all the recommended precautions to stay that way.

Now for 9 other celebrations….all from home (or easy walking distance):

Talking to family far away. It’s such a boost to talk with family – know that they are doing fine – that we all have pleasant homes and a few people with us. It’s good to let whatever anxiety has accumulated to melt away and celebrate family.

Grocery delivery. At first the idea of grocery delivery made me anxious. Now I find that the arrival of another delivery to our front porch is a cause for celebration. We have good food at low health risk.

Fashion as Design Coursera course. The whole course was interesting. I learned a lot more – and maybe differently – that I anticipated. I celebrated the whole course.

My history in wardrobe terms. The Fashion as Design prompted a whole project - thinking about my wardrobe from the 1960s to today. It was a fun project and I celebrated the memory of my favorite clothes.

Life in the Universe Pandemic Series. I’m a fan of Charles Cockell’s mini-lectures on astrobiology and I enjoyed his book (Bruntsfield Brook) as well. I watch/listen to the videos in clumps…glad I became aware of them shortly after he started.

Hiking into the forest. The whole hike was one big celebration. I am already looking at the forecast and planning another hike.

And then there are three birds I am highlighting as April celebrations: rose-breasted grosbeak, piliated woodpecker, and goldfinch. I celebrate the view from my office window each and every day. It is becoming a wall of green now that the trees are leafing out.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/21/2020 - Macro Fabrics

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Looking at Life Magazine for May 1944 – I found some early work of Chesley Bonestell that launched his space art career…mixed in with the coverage of World War II.

Finished reading Bruntsfield Brook by Charles Cockell. I bought the Kindle version after hearing about it in one of the Life in the Universe Pandemic Series videos. It was a fun way to learn about microbial mats…wound into a story with lots of drama impacting the different kinds of microbes: phages, ice, pollution, and drought.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

And now for a little project prompted by learning (from Charles Cockell in his Life in the Universe Pandemic Series) that Antonie van Leeuvenhoek first used macro lenses to assess the quality of fabric…then turned the lenses onto other things and became known as ‘the father of microbiology.’ For some reason I had never thought about what prompted him to be using glass lenses originally. So – I did a little project to look at different fabrics with the jeweler’s loupe…taking pictures with my phone through the loupe.

I started with the upholstery fabric on a couch. The colors are more vivid when they are magnified! I don’t know what the fiber content is…but it’s shiny…. that probably means it’s synthetic.

Clothes that I had that were labelled 100% cotton were all tops. 2 t-shirts (normal weight and thin) and a waffle shirt

I also had an older 100% cotton denim shirt. It is old enough to have some worn areas.

Then there were the cotton and polyester blends. The bandana didn’t have a label, but I lumped it with the blends because it was shiny. A pair of jeans and a t-shirt looked like cotton so I assume that the polyester part might be wrapped in cotton.

A quilted jacked had a looser weave and was shiny. A man’s shirt and my photovest were both a tight weave cotton/polyester.

I have a linen-look button front tunic that I have enjoyed wearing for years. I didn’t realize it was 100% polyester until I looked at the label. And it looks very much like plastic when magnified! I’d never thought of it as ‘shiny’ before.

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I had two silk scarves which I included in my pile to photograph.

And then there was acrylic blended with polyester (for a cardigan), with cotton (for a ribbed turtleneck) and nylon for a lightweight unlined sweater jacket. The last one looks like the 100% polyester tunic – although the fiber in the tunic is woven and the sweater jacket is a knit.

Overall – it was an interesting project. I am always keen to apply what I am learning, and this project blended the astrobiology lectures and the Fashion as Design class!

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 4/2/2020

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Finishing the Coursera course: In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting from MoMA. The last module was about Yayoi Kusama – the only artist featured in the course that is still alive and the second woman.

Making a Yayoi Kusama inspired Zentangle tile. Kusama’s Accumulation 18a from 1962 is made with paper savers (circular adhesives to reinforce holes punched into paper) and charcoal on paper. My tile is smaller, lightweight cardboard instead of paper…and it was brown instead of white. I used some very old paper savers that were a woven material (I had saved them in the office supply cabinet even though I didn’t think I would ever have a use for them); I wondered if the adhesive would still work…was pleasantly surprised when it did. And I used a graphite pencil instead of charcoal. Once I had done the paper savers and pencil…..I diverged by coloring the holes green….and added a black circle on each paper saver (feeling the nubs of the weave). I took a series of pictures of the progression.

Tracking the changes in the COVID-19 Projections. The model gets a daily tweak as new data is available. I made some notes the night before so it could detect some of the changes between the 4/1 and 4/2 version of the model.

  • The peak for the US overall moved from 4/16 to 4/15…one less day to prepare.

  • For Maryland the peak moved from 4/28 to 4/29, the peak death day rose from 51 to 53 deaths, and the peak number of ventilators moved from 638 to 659.

Hearing about my daughter’s transition from in-classroom to virtual teaching (university level). My daughter has been calling when she takes her (almost) daily walk around her neighborhood in Missouri. A positive bit of news: her gen-ed class has transitioned to virtual mode. She thought the first class might have been a fluke because about the same number of people attended as were in her classroom before the pandemic; she thought that maybe the students were curious enough to make the effort to attend; but then they joined again for the second virtual lecture…so now she is realizing she and her students have made a successful transition.

Photographing a minute at our birdfeeder. A lot can happen. The gold finches were there at the beginning of the minute – 3-4 of them. Then the female red-bellied woodpecker showed up and scattered the other birds. She ate some seeds at the feeder then got a peanut and flew away. I noticed a female cardinal below the feeder about that time. A second later, a chickadee arrived…quickly got some seed and flew back o the safety of the trees.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

6 Free eBooks – March 2020

With so much time at home this month – I have browsed through many more online books and ramped up my monthly post about eBooks from 3 to 6. I’ve chosen 2 novels for their illustrations, 2 Ernst Haeckel collections, and 2 volumes from the 1840s with drawings of Yucatan ruins. Enjoy!

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Poe, Edgar Allan; Clarke, Harry (illustrator). Tales of Mystery and Imagination. London: George G. Harrap & Company Limited. 1923. Available from Internet Archive here. The illustrator, Harry Clarke, was also a stained-glass artist.

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Basswitz, Gerdt von. Peterchens Mondfahrt : ein Marchen. Berlin-Grunewald: Verlagsanstadlt Hermann Klemm AG. 1920. Available from Internet Archive here. The story started out as a stage play in 1912 in Leipzig; it became one of the best-loved German children’s books.

I found two collections of Ernst Haeckel’s works that I hadn’t found previously:

Radularia. Berlin: G. Reimer. 1862. Available from Internet Archive here.

Art Forms of Nature. Leipzig and Wien: Bibliographisches Institut. 1904. Available from Internet Archive here.

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Stephens, John Lloyd. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1843. Available from Internet Archive: here. Frederick Catherwood made the drawings for both volumes. Stephens and Catherwood were important figures in the rediscovery of Mayan civilization.

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Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/22/2020

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Trying macro photographs of spicebush and red maple. My original plan was to tromp through the backyard and into the woods…do the photography outdoors. But – it was colder and breezier than I anticipated so I cut a small spicebush branch and picked up a twig of red maple samaras that had blown off. The photography part of the project would be done inside.

I worked with the red maple samaras first. I used a jeweler’s loupe and my cell phone with the samara on my kitchen countertop…a small flash light supplementing the natural light coming from one side. I like the graceful ridges in the ‘wings.’

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Then I ‘got close’ with my Canon point-and-shoot camera….let its macro setting do it’s best. These are small immature samaras…about 1/4 inch.

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The spice bush flowers are small too. I put the branch in a vase (with the sycamore branch). I might get to see its leaves unfurl too…after the flowers are done. I noticed an ant on the branch as I put it in the water. Can ants be pollinators?

I tried several approaches to photographing the small flowers. The ones below were done with the clip-on macro lens on my phone. The challenge is the shallow depth of field. These flowers are small but not flat!

Then I tried putting my Canon bridge camera on a tripod across the kitchen and using the zoom. It blurs the background and provides more depth…but the color is gone. Maybe I’ll put more light on the flowers and try again. The sycamore buds might benefit from the same photographic strategy. My husband gets into the action too – helping me with the more complicated set ups.

Catching up on the Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari videos:

Completing the Jackson Pollock segment of the In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting Coursera course. I’ve been doing one ‘week’ of the course every day and enjoying all of them – particularly the part about learning how they were made.

Re-assessing our investment strategy…making some changes. At first, we thought that maybe the social distancing strategy would work, and the economy would blip but recover soon. Not enough people are following the guidance – it says something very sad about us as a nation – and means that the pandemic with be more overwhelming. From an economic standpoint, it is more than a blip and deteriorating further. So we made some investment changes to stabilize rather than free fall…..continuing our social distancing…and hoping that the tests of potential therapeutic drugs work well enough to save lives and shorten the time people are in the hospital to recover. Both my husband and I fell of the wagon of limiting time spent following the coronavirus stories and statistics yesterday…back to limiting that activity today – no one needs a constant pounding of repeating bad news.

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19, 3/20

Filling a Day of Social Distance – 3/20/2020

Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday – the warmest day so far for this spring but too windy to cook on the grill:

Switching from smoothie to oatmeal for breakfast…but not ordinary oatmeal. I added beet root powder (made the color deep red) and mashed banana while it cooked…and then had chopped walnuts in the bowl. No added sugar!

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Starting a Coursera course: In the Studio: Postwar Abstract Painting from MoMA. It’s divided into eight ‘weeks.’ I’ve finished the first two. I have enjoyed the ‘in the studio’ videos the most.

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Becoming proficient applying makeup with a foundation brush. I’ve been practicing for a little more than a week and now can do it as fast as I used to apply makeup with my fingers…and it looks better. The brush has been through one cleaning (the advice it to clean it weekly with soap and water); even though it didn’t look like it retained makeup – the water was definitely makeup colored!

Cutting a sycamore stem to observe the buds opening. I have it in a vase in the kitchen window. I’ll post some photographs once I build up a sequence.

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Observing a chickadee at the bird feeder…but it was only there for a few seconds and not on the side for the camera to catch. I hope the birds re-discover the feeder soon (and that the hawk stays away).

Previous “filling a day of social distance” posts: 3/15, 3/16, 3/17, 3/18, 3/19

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 7, 2020

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.  

Chasing Little Frost Trees in a Prairie Wetland | The Prairie Ecologist – We haven’t have many days for me to look for frost trees here in Maryland this year. This is always a matter of taking advantage of a frosty sunny day when it’s fun to look for interesting frost formations on exposed surfaces – grass – windshields, etc.

Stoneflies and mayflies, canaries of our streams – It’s great to see an article about the adult forms of the insects we collect as macroinvertebrates (larval form) when we do water quality monitoring either quarterly or with high school students on a field trip to a river.

Earthquakes in and around Yellowstone: How Often Do They Occur? – There are lots of them! About 5 that are strong enough to be felt have happened each year over the past decade.

Top strategies for successful weight loss maintenance-- ScienceDaily - Choosing healthy food, tracking what you eat and using positive self-talk….seems like common sense, but it is not ‘easy’ and so we struggle on. It comes down to making changes for the long term rather than just for a little while. New habits are always tough but, once truly habitual, become just the way be live our lives.  

Eero Järnefelt, painter of Finnish nature | Europeana Blog – Images of the natural world in the late 1800s. Koli National Park in eastern Finland was visited by the painter frequently.

Sustainable Farming Comes to America's Heartland | CleanTechnica – Iowa farmers…leading with their actions…responding to climate and environmental changes to farm better.

Can we heat buildings without burning fossil fuels? - BBC Future – Capturing heat from nearby places…using it for heating. It’s geothermal in the cities!

Bloom in McMurdo Sound – Green swirls in the water off Antarctica (some of the green color might be on the ice as well.

Camera Trap Chronicles: Cool Critters of New Hampshire – Maybe sometime  we’ll put our camera, currently pointed at the birdfeeder, in another location….see what comes into our backyard. I know we have deer but there could be other things as well. Our camera already picked up what looked like a racoon on our deck.

Top 25 birds of the week: groups of birds – Beautiful birds…a good ‘last addition’ to the gleanings list this week.

Robinson Nature Center - Inside

Last week, I was at Robinson Nature Center for my usual Sunday afternoon volunteering for the saltwater Touch Tank. It was a relatively busy day; there seemed to be more people in the room that usual when I started (I had one of the older children help me set up) and families seemed to just keep stopping by to see and touch the sea critters. The animals were tolerant enough of my handling and the children’s gentle (one finger) touches to still show off when they were on their own: the milk conch eating algae from the sand and the chocolate chip sea star holding firmly to the glass side.

In the only lull of the afternoon, I took a few pictures of the new extension to the wall painting in the Discovery Room. My favorite is the sycamore trees in winter.

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The tulip poplar seed pods are in the scene too.

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And then there are critters!

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There are some people sketched into the scene…maybe the painting will be further along next time I am at Robinson.

3 Free eBooks – January 2020

Starting out the new year…I selected 3 books with an art and history skew from my accumulation of reading this month.

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Dillon, Edward. Glass. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. London: Methuen and Co. 1907. Available from Project Gutenberg here. The book is a history of glass (up until the early 1900s) with illustrations of pieces in museum collections. I paid more attention to the illustrations than the text. I’ve always been interested in ancient glass because it points to the step beyond basketry and pottery in our manufacturing expertise. It a material we think about as being ‘breakable’ but is often very enduring.

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Whitney, Frederick. Blackboard Sketching. Springfield, Massachusetts: Milton Bradley Company. 1909. Available from Internet Archive here. Written at a time when many students were learning to write and draw with blackboard slates and slate pencils…it provides an idea of how students were taught. Early classrooms used a lot less paper!

LaFontaine, Bruce. Bridges of the World Coloring Book. Dover Publication. 1994. Available from Internet Archive here. The bridges are organized chronologically. The sample image I show below is the colored version (as the end page of the book) of page 10…a bridge from China built about 1100. The book includes short descriptions the design features and technologies the bridge builders utilized. Obviously, these bridges have proven to be very durable.

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Enjoy these 3 online books!

5 Free eBooks – December 2019

I usually pick 3 books to feature in the monthly ‘free eBooks’ post; this month I am featuring 5. The titles all begin  “An Artist in…” and there were published between 1910 and 1915 although not by the same publisher. I think of them as a window into 5 places just before World War I: Spain, Egypt, Italy, Corfu and the Riviera. I am reminded that artists tend to correct ‘imperfections’ as they paint…even if they are trying for realism! Enjoy the scenes from over 100 years ago!

Michael, Arthur C. An Artist in Spain. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1914. Available from Internet Archive here.

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Tyndale, Walter. An Artist in Egypt. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1912. Available from Internet Archive here.

Tyndale, Walter. An Artist in Italy. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1913. Available from Internet Archive here.

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Atkinson, Sophie. An Artist in Corfu. London: Herbert & Daniel. 1913. Available from Internet Archive here.

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Tyndale, Walter. An Artist in the Riviera. New York: Hearst’s International Library Co. 1915. Available from Internet Archive here.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts – Part 2

Continuing the highlights from our visit to the Virginial Museum of Fine Arts….

The Ancient gallery is dedicated to Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Etruscan art. I was glad the museum permits (non-flash) photography because there were lots of Zentangle prompts in the pots. Thinking about how old some of them are…how amazing it is that they survived…that they still appeal to us now. Some of them appeared to be more functional objects than art but may those pieces tell us more about the lives of long-ago peoples that things intended only for display or another special purpose.

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I’d never seen an Egyptian bust that was intentionally made from a rock with a vein of another color across the face. It is quite striking and was the ‘style’ for a short period of Egyptian history.

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In the East Asian gallery, there was black screen with botanical images. It did not look as impressive until I zoomed with the camera and made out the detail of the images.

Other items from the East Asian gallery provided a diversity of styles and materials. The small bowl is made from agate.

Back for a last look as some pieces from the Ancient gallery….gold piece from a crown, more pottery, jewelry and two small friezes.

For a short walk around, we saw a lot of interesting (and beautiful) things!

Free eBooks – September 2019

Usually I feature 3 books. This time I am featuring one book…and a series of 10 books (6 of which I read in September).

Marriott, Charles. Modern Art – a collection of works in modern art. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. 1917. Available from Internet Archive here. A good selection of what was ‘modern’ during World War I. The illustrations are in color.

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Bushell, Stephen Wootton. Oriental Ceramic Art – illustrated examples from the collection of W.T. Walters. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1897. Ten volumes available from Internet Archive here. This collection formed the basis of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore that was formed by his son. Walters died in 1894; he had prepared parts of the volumes that were then edited and published after his death. I still have 4 volumes to savor…in October! I picked a sample image from each of the 6 I’ve already browsed for this post.

3 Free eBooks – July 2019

So many good books…so little time.

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International Museum of the Horse. A Gift from the Desert: The Art, History and Culture of the Arabian Horse. Lexington, Kentucky: International Museum of the Horse. 2010. Available from Internet Archive here. This is the illustrated catalog from an exhibition held in 2010; the presenting sponsor was the Saudi Arabian Equestrian Federation. The photographs of objects and locations included in the digital book tell the story more than the words.

Bing, Siegfried (editor). Le Japon artistique : documents d'art et d'industrie. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-arts. 1888. Available from Internet Archive here. The French version of a magazine that appeared simultaneously in English, French, and German. It helped introduce Japanese art and artworks to the West. I had previously looked at the English version but didn’t realize they were the same thing until I looked back at my master booklist. I still enjoyed the illustrations…again.

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Gould, John. The Birds of Australia. London: R and JE Taylor. Seven volumes originally published in the mid-1800s and available from Internet Archive here . The illustrations are probably the work of his wife – Elizabeth Gould. She died in 1841 shortly after giving birth to her 8th child. It wasn’t until 1938 that a collection of her letters from Australia were discovered and became the basis for a biography.

Springfield Art Museum

When my daughter and I traveled to Springfield, Missouri in early June, most of our time was spent on logistics for her to move there at the end of June. We took a break and walked through the Springfield Art Museum. It was well worth the time spent.

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Two pieces had strong associations for me: a Nick Cave Soundsuit that reminded me of a wookie

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And the fountain in the courtyard that reminded me of a much smaller fountain that my mother has in her garden (the swirl of shapes that channel the water from the top of the fountain to where it spills into the pool).

I got a little sidetracked with the flowers growing near the fountain too.

Another Nick Cave piece was thought provoking. One of the benefits of walking through a museum that allows pictures (without flash and staying far enough back) is photographing the write up about the piece too.

I noted the butterfly at first glance of the crazy quilt that was made in the 1880s of satin, silk, and velvet…with appliques. The quilt was a bit of whimsy from a time very different than our own…a product of a hours of work with a beautiful result. Happiness coming through this creation – then to now.

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3 Free eBooks – February 2019

As usual – I tried to select some different kinds of books that are available for free to peruse online. This month they are from three different sources too: Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Project Gutenberg. Maybe one of these is something you would enjoy too…so take your pick - history or art or children’s literature!

Country Life in America. New York: Doubleday, Page, & Co. 1901-1917. Hathi Trust has 31 volumes of the periodical available here. Most of the magazine is black and white but there is some color like these three pictures from the December 1904 issue. The advertising is as interesting as the pictures with articles…it is a snapshot of the time: technology, food, special occasions, travel.

Rebay, HIlla. Third enlarged catalogue of the Solomon R. Guggeneheim collection of non-objective paintings: March 7th until April 17th, 1938, Gibbes memorial art gallery, Charleston, South Carolina. New York: Bradford Press. 1938. Available from Internet Archive here. Lots of colored images in this book since it was from an exhibition of ‘modern’ art of the 1920s and 1930s. The two below are by Rudolf Bauer.

Greenaway, Kate. Mother Goose or the Old Nursery Rhymes. London: Frederick Warne and Co. 1881. Available from Project Gutenberg here. Familiar Rhymes…fun illustrations. This author created imaginary 18th-century clothes for children that became a style for actual clothes for children!

3 Free eBooks – December 2018

I always am challenged to pick just three books from the eBooks I’ve found during the month. There is a lot of variety in my selections this month….from archeology to typewriter art to a story book. Enjoy!

Savill, Mervyn. Pre-Inca Art and Culture. London: Macgibbon & Kee. 1960. Available at Internet Archive here. There are many books that are from the Archaeology Survey of India that are now available on Internet Archive. This one is from 1960. Some of the art looks very exotic but these three busts of rulers look very human indeed.

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Riddell, Alan. Typewriter Art. London Magazine Editions. 1975. Available Internet Archive here. I can remember making banners on continuous feed printers in the 1970s! I don’t think I ever made anything as elaborate as this cityscape, but this book brought back the memory.

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Olfers, Sibylee von. The Story of the Root-Children. 1906. The English version was published by Floris Books, Edinburgh in 1990 and the 5th impression is available from Internet Archive here. The illustrations are interesting. Wikipedia has a short biography of the author. She was a German art teacher and nun that created her picture books for her younger sister in the early 1900s. I wish all of her books were available on Internet Archive…even if they were the German editions…since I am most interested in her illustrations.

3 Free eBooks – October 2018

There are so many good eBooks available free of charge. All three are from the Internet Archive this month.

Paglia, Camille. Glittering Images – A Journey through Art from Egypt to Star Wars. New York: Pantheon Books. 2012. Available from Internet Archive here. It’s a good book to browse through online – like a digital ‘coffee table’ book – reading only the captions.

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Brock, Alan St. Hill. Pyrotechnics: the history and art of firework making. London: Daniel O’Connor. 1922. Available from Internet Archive here. The depiction of fireworks is quite different between the Chinese and Western Europe/America.

The author was from the 8th generation of the Brock family to made fireworks in England.

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The Diani Beach Art Gallery. Affordable Art Selection September October 2018. Kenya: Diani Beach Contemporary African Art. Available from Internet Archive here. Sometimes catalogs can be worth looking at as a book. I enjoyed the vibrant colors and depictions of African people/scenes.

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3 Free eBooks – August 2018

So many great books available all the time…and free. Reading used to be a much more expensive activity!

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Brongniart, Adolphe. Histoire des végétaux fossiles, ou, Recherches botaniques et géologiques sur les végétaux renfermés dans les diverses couches du globe. A Paris et a Amsterdam: Chez G. Dufour et Ed. d’Ocagne. 1828. Available from Internet Archive here. This book includes many illustrations of plant fossils – imprints on rocks. It’s written in French – but the illustrations are the reason it’s worth a look. It was probably one of the first paleobotany books ever written. The author produced the book in his late 20s…must have had access to a sizable collection.

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Karageorghis, Vassos. Ancient Art from Cyprus - The Cesnola Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2000. Available from Internet Archive here. This is a more recent book (I am glad that many copyright holders that have out-of-print books are making them available this way). The color illustrations are wonderful. I particularly like utilitarian objects.

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Aruz, Joan and Wallenfels, Ronald (editors). Art of the first cities: the third millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2003. Available from Internet Archive here. Another relatively recent book. Would you have guessed the necklace was from the 3rd millennium BC?

3 Free eBooks – January 2018

Three books – the first one for reading; the second one for reading and the images; the third for the images.

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Creevey, Caroline Alathea Stickney. A Daughter of Puritans: An Autobiography. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. 1916. Available Hathi Trust here. I’d found Creevey’s Flowers of field, hill and swamp and discovered the autobiography when I looked to see if there were more books from her on Internet Archive and HathiTrust. The autobiography is a good read – a snapshot of her growing up years. She lived from 1843-1920 and to book ends when she married so this is just before and during the civil war.

Dunsany, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron with illustration by A. H. Sime. The sword of Welleran, and other stories. London: G. Allen and Sons. 1908. From Internet Archive here. The illustrations and stories are both intriguing. Both the author and the illustrator have biographies in Wikipedia.

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Pillsbury, Joanne. Moche Art and Archaeology in ancient Peru. Washington: National Gallery of Art. 2005. Available from HathiTrust here. Such a different culture than the Inca! The way the faces of people are depicted is what interested me the most….the relationship between culture and depiction of the human form in art shows how what we ‘see’ is impacted by more than the biology of sight.

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