Final Book Reviews for January

 

STAR BRIGHT - Andrew M. Greeley (135 pages)

c. 1997  In this charming little Christmas love story, the Irish kid from Chicago, attending Boston College, meets a lovely Russian girl studying at Harvard. They hit it off because he speaks Russian and wants to practice his second language. As Christmas approaches, he invites her to fly home with him to Chicago to meet his raucous, quarrelsome Irish family. The story is full of Russian folklore and cherished Christmas stories and traditions.

GIDEON’S GIFT - Karen Kingsbury (99 pages)

c. 2002  This is a sweet, but rather predictable, Christmas story that teaches it’s better to give than to receive. A little girl with leukemia and in need of a life-saving bone marrow transplant tries to help a stubborn old homeless man see that life really is worth living. For those with children, this would make a great Christmas story to read one chapter a night over the twelve days of Christmas.

WHITE HOUSE KIDS - Susan Edwards (159 pages)

c. 1999  This was an amusing and interesting book about the children of American presidents who lived in the White House (up through Chelsea Clinton, the only child of Bill and Hillary Clinton). I was especially interested in reading of the lives of the presidents and their families before John F. Kennedy, as I knew very little about them previously. The book told about White House pets and weddings too.

AN OPTICAL ARTIST - Greg Roza (31 pages)

c. 2005   This is a very brief introduction to the Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898-1972) for children. (It was the only book in our public library that I could find on this creative genius.) It concentrates on tessellations (tilings): arrangements of similar shapes on a plane that fit together perfectly without overlapping or leaving gaps. Escher studied the ornate Islamic tile patterns in the 14^th century Alhambra palace on several trips to Spain and pronounced them “the richest source of inspiration I have ever tapped.” His incredible optical-illusion illustrations surprise and baffle the mind.

HITTING THE ROAD: The Art of the American Road Map - John Margolies (129 pages)

c. 1996  Who would have guessed that the lowly road map would have had such a fascinating past?

             Dating back to the turn of the 20^th century, oil companies (and others) gave away free road maps at service stations all over the country.  Not only were they meant to promote a certain brand of gasoline, but they were also intended to spark America’s interest in travel in general, thereby increasing the consumption of gasoline.

            This book is a nostalgic journey into yesteryear, with its colorful road map cover art depicting changing styles of cars, clothing and service station design.  A typical early road map cover showed a handsome chap driving a barge-sized convertible with his favorite gal by his side, her hair and scarf flying in the wind, breezing along the highway in some scenic locale.  Others showed the always helpful gas station attendant pointing out directions to a lost motorist at some snazzy, sparkling clean service station. (Does anyone remember gas station attendants?) Women drivers started appearing in road map art during the decade of the 1930s.

            The maps themselves evolved over the years as new roads to everywhere were built. At first confusing, since roads weren’t numbered or named, they later became easier to understand when the state of Wisconsin, in 1918, started numbering its “state highways” and the idea caught on in other states. There was even a map of the route from NYC to Florida printed upside down, with south pointing up, so snowbirds wouldn’t become confused about right and left turns on their way south.

            Today, with GPS and other computer aids, road maps have become almost obsolete.  The first Arab oil imbargo in 1973 brought about the demise of the free road map, but they can still be had, if you want to pay $5 or $6 for them. Personally, I prefer my Rand McNally Road Atlas.  I never got the hang of the unfolding and refolding of the nearly one hundred different origami-like folding patterns that have been patented over the years.  Old road maps, in good shape (rare), are now sought-after collectors’ items.

Market Day

This isn't a very clear picture, so when I take a new, better one, I'll replace it.

This is a sculpture I made in Leslie Stalter's 3-D Design class.  It's called "Market Day" because I think it looks like an African village woman going to market with a basket on her head.

The assignment was to take an object and re-interpret it any way we liked. I used small cardboard circles that they put pizzas on before they place them in the to-go boxes. My friend Tonia, at Leo's Pizza gave me a stack of them --- and I cut them down into ever smaller and smaller circles, and then stacked and glued them together. Next I poked black peppercorns and black beans into the holes along the edges of the corrugated cardboard. The object I was re-interpreting was this pepper-mill.

More January Book Reviews

DIEGO RIVERA: The Shaping of an Artist (1889-1921) - Florence Arquin (143 pages)

c. 1971  This book covers the Mexican artist’s early, formative years, long before he met Frida Kahlo. As a child, Diego Maria de la Concepcion Juan Neomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodriquez was more artistically precocious than most children his age. At the age of three, when most other children are drawing happy faces with stick legs and arms sprouting from large round heads, little Diego could draw a very detailed locomotive and train. At the age of 13 he was enrolled in the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts in Mexico City, where he began his formal study of art. At age 21, he received a grant to study art abroad and spent two years in Spain. Two years later (1909), bored with formal Spanish realism, he moved on to Paris where he experimented with the different styles of the day, such as cubism, pointillism, and modern primitivism. He was always trying something new. After ten years in France, he concluded that his art study was complete. But before he returned to Mexico, he spent a year in Italy, studying the Renaissance masters and learning the arts of mosaic and fresco.

            He finally returned to Mexico a mature artist, ready to begin the career that made him famous, mural painting. I was surprised to learn of the broad scope of his early experimentation in art.  The color plates in this book were too few and of poor quality. Most of the artwork was reproduced in black and white.

BUFFALO GIRLS - Larry McMurtry (350 pages)

c. 1990  Rough-and-tumble Calamity Jane and her best friend, the Miles City (Montana) madam, Dora DuFran, are the “buffalo girls” of the title. They share this story with their dear friends: Bartle and Jim, a couple of old mountain men; No Ears, an elderly Indian; and Dora’s lover, Blue. 

          I got off to a slow start with this book, as all the characters seemed to be doing was sitting around moping. But as the story progresses, I came to understand why they were all so melancholy. Just like me, they’ve come to that age called “over the hill” and they mourn the good old days. By the time depicted in the novel, the buffalo and the beaver are gone, killed off by the white man’s greed, and those that remain live in zoos. The Indians are gone too, with the last remnants of the great tribes of the prairies sent to live on reservations. Life has lost its “wild west” flavor and romance, and the characters are  just sitting around, getting drunk and getting old.

          Throughout the story Martha Jane (Calamity) writes frequent letters to a daughter, who she claimed was Wild Bill Hickok’s and she’d put up for adoption. Little Janey’s story is explained at the end of the book. WARNING: If you’re prone to reading the last chapter of a book first, don’t! You’ll ruin a surprising and tender story.

          But then Buffalo Bill Cody arrives and invites them on what could be the last great adventure of their lives, a trip to England to meet the Queen and perform in his Wild West Show.  I can’t even describe how hilarious it is for these country folks to cross a huge ocean on a slow boat and be dazzled by the great city of London.

          Just as he did in Lonesome Dove, McMurtry has peopled this novel with memorable characters that are colorful and lovable, despite their faults. A great read!

MY INVENTED COUNTRY - Isabel Allende (198)

c. 1990  Reading Allende has made me fall in love with Chile. Here she’s at her best, telling about the people, places and memories of her homeland. She was born in Peru, has lived in many different countries, and now calls the U.S. her home, but her heart belongs to Chile, where she grew up. She calls it her “invented” country because she realizes that nostalgia for a place and time is usually part fact and part imagination.

Nostalgia

If you're yearning for the good old days, 

just turn off the air conditioning.  

~Griff Niblack~

My Best Buddy, Beary

I talk to him when I'm lonesome like; 

and I'm sure he understands.  

When he looks at me so attentively, 

and gently licks my hands; 

then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, 

but I never say naught thereat.  

For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, 

but never a friend like that.  

~W. Dayton Wedgefarth~

January Book Reviews - Part 2

THE OREGON TRAIL - Francis Parkman (315 pages)

c. 1872 (reissued in 1963) This book is the real deal, not some historian’s look at the Old West.  It’s “straight from the horse’s mouth.” In 1846 Francis Parkman, a young Bostonian just graduated from Harvard and in ill health, sets off on a summer excursion to the Rockies (“a tour of curiosity and amusement”) with his cousin, Quincy Adams Shaw, also a recent Harvard graduate.

          Parkman plans to write a history of the French and Indian Wars, but since the Indians of the East are either extinct or removed to western reservations, he feels he needs to live with the still free-roaming Indian tribes out west to better understand their way of life.

          During his “tour” of the prairies and mountains, there is a mass migration of settlers moving across the landscape in Conestoga wagons, headed for a new life in California and Oregon.  The book’s title is misleading.  I expected yet another account of pioneer travels on the famed Oregon trail. But this book is about Parkman’s sojourn with an Ogallala tribe, and he never travels the Oregon Trail any farther than Fort Laramie.  There his cousin Shaw must be left behind after he develops a severe case of poison ivy.

          Parkman goes off with the tribe and keeps detailed notes of their nomadic life following the buffalo herds. The book, which the author, whose eyesight has deteriorated to near-blindness, dictates to his cousin after they return to civilization, is very descriptive of the Plains Indians’ way of life. It is said to be one of the great autobiographical accounts of the American frontier and gives a very interesting, first-hand account of Native American customs and society.

JIM WHITEWOLF: The Life of a Kiowa Apache Indian - Charles S. Brant (141 pages)

c. 1969  This was an absolutely fascinating memoir of an ordinary Kiowa Apache Indian born around 1878 in Oklahoma.  It chronicles the disintegration of the old customs and way of life of Native Americans as the white man encroached on their world.

          Ethnographer Charles S. Brant spent five weeks interviewing the old man in 1949. His introduction to the cultural and historical background of the tribe was a bit dry, though necessary for a proper understanding of the culture --- but once the old Indian began his story, in his own words, I was hooked.

          He dealt very frankly with his childhood, family, schooling, marriage, alcoholism, womanizing and gambling, divorce, his membership in the Native American Church and its peyote prayer rituals, grass and oil leases, the devastating flu that killed so many of the tribe prior to WW1, and his experiences with Western religion.  In the final years of his long life, Jim Whitewolf was one of the very few surviving Kiowa Apaches with vivid memories of the old ways of the life of his people, and as such he was a national treasure. Recommended for those with an interest in Native American history and culture.

DARKNESS VISIBLE - William Styron (84 pages)

c. 1990  I will start by admitting that I very much did NOT like the only book of Styron’s that I’ve read so far, Sophie’s Choice. But I don’t like to give up on an author after only one book, so I chose this one because it was short. 

          It turned out to be the author’s memoir of his experience with clinical depression, which struck when he turned 60 and very nearly drove him to suicide.  I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced a book that paralleled my own feelings so closely, as I too struggled with years of debilitating depression, which a number of anti-depressant failed to relieve. His feelings of helplessness and despair mirrored mine. I eventually found my release through six months of cognitive therapy; the author had to admit himself to a mental health facility to beat his illness.

          This is a book everyone should read. Nobody knows what a living hell depression is unless they’ve been through it. Sufferers should read it, simply to understand that it IS survivable. Others should read it, so they know the symptoms to look for in themselves or loved ones in case it should ever hit close to home. (I was relieved to learn, after googling the author, that he lived to be 81 and died of natural causes.)

CLOSE TO SHORE - Michael Capuzzo (137 pages)

c. 2003 Subtitled: The Terrifying Shark Attacks of 1916

For two weeks in July, 1916, a rogue great white shark cruised along the shore of New Jersey, spreading death and panic in its wake.  Five people were attacked in three different locations, with only one surviving. (As I was reading this exciting page-turner, scenes and music from the movie  Jaws kept coming to mind.) The attacks sparked frenzied hunting for the man-eater, and fifty-eight years later inspired the novel Jaws by Peter Benchley and the subsequent movie by Steven Spielberg (1975).

ENDANGERED PLEASURES - Barbara Holland (204 pages, LP)

c. 1995  I got a big kick out of this little book, which contains witty essays on various guilty pleasures. These are the activities people used to enjoy before politically correct, moralistic, or self-righteous experts shamed or threatened them into abandoning.

          I “found” myself many times in between the covers of this book: in the sections on napping, exercise, gardening, traveling, bad words, and getting older, to name just a few. Sometimes I was embarrassed to admit to myself these sinful indulgences. But most of the time I smugly congratulated myself for enjoying them, in spite of what others think, because the author gave me an encouraging thumbs-up.

          Because it’s broken up into short essays, one needn’t read the entire book at one sitting. A few a day, read at bedtime, will tickle the funny-bone and lead to guiltless dreams of indulging in whatever makes one happy.

 

 

Look With Your Understanding

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. 

All they show is limitation. 

Look with your understanding. 

Find out what you already know 

and you will see the way to fly.”
~Richard Bach~  Jonathon Livingston Seagull

Duluth Skyline

"Duluth Skyline" acrylic on paper

One of the women at the Split Rock artists' retreat I attended lived across Lake Superior on the Wisconsin side. She had a beautiful sunset photo taken from her back yard with her, and she let me borrow it for this painting.

No Homework - An Idea Whose Time Has Come

The other day I say a piece on the news about a school district that is trying a novel new approach: no homework. I don't have a child in school anymore, but what stands out as the biggest problem we had all through my son's school years was EXCESS HOMEWORK!

When my son was in early elementary, he had a teacher who sent home homework in nearly every subject almost every night, so his book bag weighed almost as much as he did. Because my son hated school, I had to carefully supervise his homework to make sure it got done. It often felt like I was homeschooling!

During grade school, I was a regular parent volunteer, so I had plenty of chances to observe the various teaching methods of different teachers. This particular teacher's class was like a party everyday. What I saw were a lot of games and play and fun, very little classroom instruction. That was left to the parents, of an evening, with all the homework sent home.

There was also little discipline in this classroom --- students were free to run around and do as they pleased, which was pretty chaotic most of the time. When my son entered the next grade and was struggling, his teacher asked me which teacher he'd had the year before, and she wasn't surprised by my answer. She told me she could almost always pick out the students that had had that particular teacher by their uncontrollable behavior and inability to focus on lessons.

School should not be a babysitting service, geared toward fun and games. After the children arrive home each day, their evenings should be a time of relaxation, family fun, extra-curricular activities, chores, and play --- not more "school" to be worked into an already busy family life (especially since most parents must work outside the home these days). School should be the child's "work", and home time should be "family time", not an extension of or substitute for schooling.

In this new method of teaching I saw on the news, kids listened to their teachers' taped lectures at home, in the evening (think of it, teachers being able to deliver a lecture without the constant interruption of disruptive kids to deal with); then children returned to school the next day, where what used to be "homework" was done in class, under supervision of the teacher. Students were happier, parents were happier, teachers were happier, and test scores were markedly higher.

Painting in Progress

"Galena Gate" acrylic on illustration board, 16x24 (painting in progress)

I started this painting a year ago and became so frustrated with it, I put it away. Now it's back out on the easel again and probably half-way done.  This is the hardest painting I've ever attempted. It started as watercolor on illustration board, but that wasn't working for me, so I switched to acrylic.  I really should go back to painting in oils, I guess, because the ones I like best have been oils.

Western Still Life

"Western Still Life" 16 x20 oil on canvas (SOLD)

I ran across a photo of this painting I did back when I was a member of the local Art League and we painted together every Wednesday. Usually we worked on our own projects, but one day we decided to do a still life as a group. I volunteered to bring in the objects --- not your ordinary bowl of fruit and flowers. I wonder what my husband thought of hauling that heavy wagon wheel to town. When we sold our last horse, the saddle went with her, but I still have the other items.

Always Bring It...

Coming home from an artists' retreat in Minnesota a few years ago, I spent a night at the Mason House Inn B&B in historic Bentonsport, Iowa. All the rooms have a unique decor.  Mine was "General Store."  There were antique store items on all the shelves and this grouping cracked me up.

Up & Down & Up & Down

This weather, I swear!  The other day it got up to 62 degrees and we celebrated with this gourmet shish-kabob dinner cooked out on the grill. Now we're in the deep freeze again. I guess it could be worse. The Pacific Northwest is getting hammered!  But...after all, it IS winter!

Hitchhiking to Heaven?

I found this angel in a cemetery near Patterson, Illinois. There's something about the "thumbs-up" and the closed eyes that kinda spooks me!

Keepin' 'em Sharp

KatMandu

If the claws didn't retract, cats would be like Velcro.  

~Bruce Fogle~

Food for Thought (4 Book Reviews)

Here are three very well-written post-apocalyptic novels I've read recently.  None of us wants to think about the End of the World, but in this modern world we find ourselves living in, nuclear and/or biological warfare is an all-too-real possibility.

ONE SECOND AFTER - William R. Forstchen (350)
© 2009 The plot reads like a typical Disaster-of-the-Week movie. The guy, a widower with two young daughters, tries to keep his family safe when society breaks down after an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) nuclear attack on the U.S. The small North Carolina mountain town where he lives bands together to try to survive under martial law.
          This is a horror story that’s well-written, heart-breaking, and eerily prophetic. What raises this novel above your typical end-of-the-world scenarios is the fact that this isn’t science fiction, it’s science fact. The weapons are out there, ready for use at any time.
          The science behind the EMP: A nuclear warhead is detonated miles above the earth’s atmosphere, and it causes intense electro-magnetic energy that fries everything electrical. The genius of this weapon is that there’s no radioactive fall-out, since the bomb was blown above earth’s atmosphere. It affects a limited area, according to the size and altitude of the detonation. And it doesn’t physically harm living organisms. It just obliterates electronics and plunges our modern technological society into primitive barbarism.
          I’ve always wondered, “what if?” I think the book does a real good job explaining the extreme hardships we would face if our nation lost its power-grid infrastructure. Scary stuff!

WAR DAY- Whitley Strieber & James Kunetka (515 pages)

© 1984  This, in my opinion, is the quintessential doomsday book, and I’ve read a lot in this genre. Like ONE SECOND AFTER, it gives a gripping, realistic look at what our country would be like in the aftermath of nuclear war.

          SCENARIO: The U.S. and the [former] U.S.S.R. have had a limited exchange of nuclear weapons in the fall of 1988, a 36-minute war that destroyed both countries as we know them. Moscow, Stalingrad, New York City, Washington DC, and San Antonio were obliterated in the blasts.

          It’s five years later, and the authors embark on a brave road trip to assess the living conditions in various parts of the country in order to write a book about it.

          Although it is great post-apocalyptic fiction, it reads like a fascinating non-fiction documentary of what the authors encounter as they travel around the country by train, interviewing various survivors. Interviews with government officials give an idea of what exactly happened to cause the sudden war, how the country is dealing with reconstruction, and how the world is going on without the two Super-Powers. Interviews with medical and relief personnel show the suffering being endured by the survivors of not only radioactive fall-out, but also devastating new diseases that ravage those who weren’t lucky enough to be killed in the actual blasts. Interviews with ordinary people on the street reveal a tattered remnant that’s determined to begin a new and better society.

          Since it was written in the early 80s, the book is now somewhat dated --- but that doesn’t detract from the historical aspect of what life was like in the 1980s, compared to our technology today. Particularly poignant was the part of the book where they interviewed a “salvor,” a person whose job it is to go into devastated areas and salvage whatever they can to use in the rebuilding of other places. This man was in charge of a crew removing miles and miles of copper wiring/tubing from the World Trade Center.

          It was a long book, but I’m surprised how quickly I read it, since it delved into just about every aspect of life after the Big One.  Probably the most important point that can be made from this book is that we’re no better prepared now for a devastating nuclear exchange, any more than we would have been back in 1988.

EARTH ABIDES - George R. Stewart (373 pages)

© 1949  In this philosophical, post-apocalyptic novel, a young man named Isherwood Williams returns home to San Francisco after a wilderness camping trip to find that humankind has been killed off by some kind of global pandemic. Desperate to find survivors, he takes off on a grueling trip across country, but returns in despair. He’d only found a few suffering people during his trip to New York and back, so he settles into his parents' home to figure things out. Soon he finds another survivor, a black woman named Em, who becomes Eve to his Adam in this “brave new world.” Eventually several other survivors turn up and they come together as a tribe and begin the work of a new civilization. As the years pass, and children are born to the tribe, it looks like they’ll be successful, if they only start developing survival skills.

           At first electricity continues on automatic operation and water still flows through the pipes from the reservoir.  They survive by scavenging everything they need from the deserted stores around them. Brief sections in italics are scattered throughout the book, telling how things start deteriorating in the absence of mankind --- very much like the History Channel series "Life After People", only on a much less technological scale because this book was written in 1949. These italicized sections tell how the  inventions of man (cities, buildings, power grids, roads, water systems etc.) eventually break down once man is no longer around to tend them.

           Will they go on to build a new world or will mankind die with whimper? The main characters are well-depicted and their struggle to survive is very descriptive, with an engaging story line. Because this was very early post-apocalyptic fiction, you get the feeling that they have a better chance of making it than we would in our overly-technological world today.  I found the book fascinating and recommend it, even to those who think they don’t like this genre. A lot of food for thought here. 

*          *          *          *          * 

Lastly, below is a Young Adult novel I DO NOT recommend because it's naively absurd and simplistic:

LIFE AS WE KNEW IT - Susan Beth Pfeffer (352 pages, CDBK)
©2006  First of all, I have to admit that I enjoyed Emily Bauer’s reading of this book. She made a very convincing 16-year-old Miranda. Had I been reading the book, instead, I probably wouldn’t have finished it.

          This is an end-of-the-world scenario in which an asteroid crashes into the moon, knocking it into an orbit closer to the earth, wrecking havoc on our environment. Giant tsunamis wipe out coastal populations, followed by the eruption of numerous volcanoes world-wide, which plunge the globe into a prolonged “nuclear winter.”

          Maybe I just read too much non-fiction, but I think if you’re going to be a writer, you should at least know your subject. There is very little science in this book, which is probably okay, since it’s a book for kids (keep it simple, right?), and the central theme is how a teenage girl would react to a catastrophic global event that destroys all sense of normalcy in her life and threatens her and her family’s survival.

          To begin with, the time to prepare for “the end of the world” or any other major catastrophe that’s going to shut down “life as we know it” is before that event ever happens. The author would have us believe that the next day after the apocalyptic asteroid-lunar crash, we’d be able to simply go to the bank, draw out all our money, and go on a crazy shopping spree to buy up all the food and supplies we’d need to tide us over until things get back to normal. In reality, after such an event, the banks wouldn’t be open the next day (or anytime soon) and money would be worthless anyway. Stores would have already been looted and total chaos would reign. In this story, stores remain open until they run out of goods. There’s only a hint of some stealing and rumors of gang activity. In this area of contemporary Pennsylvania anyway, nobody bothers you if they see smoke coming from your chimney. Only houses that are apparently abandoned are broken into. Huh? That just seems totally unrealistic to me!

          It’s possible that the author intentionally toned down certain aspects of the utter chaos, violence, and anarchy that would immediately result, should such an astronomic event ever occur. But there were so many glaring goofs, that I quickly came to the conclusion that the author hadn’t done enough research to write convincingly on this subject.

          In the days immediately following the moon’s mishap, the town still has electricity, though sometimes sporadically. So the family still has water. But when the power eventually goes off-line permanently, the family’s not worried because they have an old well in their yard. Obviously the author doesn’t know that to get water out of a well, you either have to have an electric pump or an old-fashioned hand pump. They had neither. They just kept turning on the faucets, and water flowed magically, until the well ran dry.

          These are just a couple of examples of the un-realism of this story. But I read over 200 reviews on Shelfari, mostly from teens, and by and large, they loved this book. So it’s entertaining, if not very plausible.

         This sugar-coated and sanitized survival story could hardly be called science fiction, although it could be regarded as fantasy, I guess. There are several sequels to this book, but I won’t be reading them or anything else by this author.

Light is Good

The light in my bathroom, reflected in the mirror.

Light is good from whatever lamp it shines.  

~Author Unknown~

A Self-Portrait

This is who I am and what I do...

Your work is to discover your world 

and then with all your heart 

give yourself to it.  

~Buddha~

This Old Tractor

This old Ford 8-N tractor is as old as I am 

and does a lot more work than I do!

Snow, At Last!

After a very mild December, 

we finally have our first  snow! 

I love snow, but hate cold. Go figure!

Studio Cat

"KittenNugget"

My son's cat, Nugget, used to snooze on my studio workbench as I painted. He was the most lovable cat in the world, and I still miss him after all these years.

Moth at Rest

Those who dwell 
among the beauties 
and mysteries of the earth
are never alone 
or weary of life.  
~Rachel Carson~

Winter Woods

"Winter Woods"  oil on canvas (SOLD)

Deep within the winter forest among the snowdrifts wide
You can find a magic place where all the fairies hide....
~Author Unknown~

Loon Lake

"Loon Lake"  oil on canvas

Once, in another lifetime, I took a road trip across the 

Upper Peninsula. Somewhere there in northwestern 

Michigan, I was exploring a little road-side lake 

when I came upon a mother loon and her baby

swimming just like this. Of course, I didn't 

have my camera in my hand, so it's just 

a memory burnt into the "nature corner"

of my mind. Many years later, I 

made this painting of 

the loons.

Down with the Trees!

I'm a tree-lover.  It hurts that three trees needed to be removed from close to our house.  But we've lived in fear of them coming down in high winds for years, and some of their large branches have actually damaged our roof.  So, down they come.

In the photo above, the tree-man is taking down an 80 foot tall cottonwood tree. He cut down a 70 foot tall Tree of Heaven (I don't know it's real name) that was almost growing out of our house's foundation.  He still has an old walnut next to our front entrance to bring down.

Gallery Hop

Tonight was the monthly Gallery Hop in beautiful downtown Jacksonville, Illinois. I'm so glad the Eclectic Art Co-op & Gallery has reopened at its new location. The Meek family has done a great job and the place looks so cool! I even sold two paintings there last month!

December Book Reviews - Part 2

KID'S BOOK REVIEWS
In order to reach my goal of 200 books read in 2011, I had to read some short books. These came from the children's library:

LIVES OF THE ARTISTS - Kathleen Krull (93)
©1995 Subtitle: MASTERPIECES, MESSES (and What the Neighbors Thought)
I really liked this book of art history for young people. Nineteen popular artists from Da Vinci to Warhol are introduced, with colorful and charming stylistic portraits (big heads on small bodies) of each by Kathryn Hewitt.
I took art history in college and have done a lot of reading about famous artists and their work, but I learned a lot from this book which is full of amusing anecdotes. I especially liked the story of Diego and Frida.

THE BOYHOOD DIARY OF CHARLES LINDBERGH - Megan O’Hara, editor (31)
©2001 I like the Diaries, Letters, and Memoirs series for young people, which introduces real children from the past through their journals and diaries.
Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly an airplane non-stop, solo, across the Atlantic from New York to Paris in 1927, kept a diary from age 11 to 14. As a boy growing up on a Minnesota farm, young Charles was keenly interested in the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and camping. He kept a journal of a boating expedition he and his father made of the far northern end of the Mississippi River when he was 13.
He also detailed the trips he and his mother made by train to Washington DC to be with his father who was a Representative from Minnesota. He learned to drive the family’s Model T when he was 11, and when he was 14, he drove his father all over Minnesota as the elder Lindbergh campaigned for the Senate, which Charles also recorded in his diary.
The writings of the boy Lindbergh were interesting in themselves, and the sidebars were educational. One told about what it was like to travel on a passenger train as he and his mother did, and another described what the first automobiles were like. One gave a simple explanation of the U.S. Congress, and still another described Itasca State Park at the headwaters of the Mississippi River. There was a page on how to track wildlife, another outdoor activity that the boy enjoyed, as well as a page urging young readers to start a diary of their own. There’s a lot of interesting information packed into these 31 pages.

THE HEDGEHOG - H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) (77)
©1936; reissued 1988 by the author’s daughter.
The book jacket description says, ”A story to delight the most discerning child, THE HEDGEHOG will charm and impress adult readers.” I don’t know any “discerning” children, myself, and this book failed to delight, charm, or impress me.
It’s a rather simple story about a young Anglo-American girl, growing up in Switzerland after losing her father in WW1, who wants a hedgehog because there are snakes in her garden. The convoluted and repetitious writing, which included conversations peppered with French and German phrases and references to Greek mythology, irritated me. But basically, I was just plain bored to distraction.

WORDS WEST: Voices of Young Pioneers - Ginger Wadsworth (175)
©2003 Over 40,000 children accompanied their families on the wagon trains heading West during the 1800s. Life on the Oregon Trail, or any one of the others that led into the new frontier, is described in detail through the letters these boys and girls sent to their folks back home, as well as journals some of them kept during their journey.
The book is packed with old photos and illustrations of the pioneers and their nomadic way of life. This book is a great resource for children studying the Westward Expansion period of American history.

EYE ON THE WILD - Julie Dunlap (62)
©1995 The boy Ansel Adams (1902-1984) received his first camera when he was 14, and grew up to be a very famous nature photographer and environmentalist. This is his story, with captivating illustrations by Kerry Maguire. He had a very interesting childhood and became known for his stunning black and white photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park. This little book left me wanting to know more about the man and his work. 

SACAGAWEA: Westward with Lewis and Clark - Alana J. White (114)
©1997 This was a short but comprehensive biography of the young Shoshone woman who was such a help to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition of discovery across western America to the Pacific coast and back in 1804-1806. Accompanied by her husband, a French fur trader, and her infant son, she served as a guide and interpreter during this epic adventure. There was also a lot of information about the expedition itself, which made it a great introduction to the early exploration of the West.

THROUGH MY EYES - Ruby Bridges (61)
©1999 This is the story of the little 6-year-old black girl who was at the center of the struggle for integration of schools in Louisiana back in 1960, as told by the adult Ruby looking back. There are lots of news photos and excerpts of newspaper articles about the event, as little Ruby entered formerly all-white William Frantz Public School as its only student that fall. Eventually white parents started letting their children return, but Ruby was still taught separately by a compassionate white teacher from Boston. You can’t help feel the hatred and shamefulness of those who protested so passionately and venomously against black and white children attending the same schools.
Last year I read The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles, a biography for younger readers. I didn’t realize at the time that he had been the child psychiatrist who had helped Ruby through her stressful ordeal. Her story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, even after so many decades.

STRANDED AT PLIMOUTH PLANTATION - Gary Bowen (81)
©1994 This is the journal of a 13-year-old orphan boy whose ship, bound for Jamestown, Virginia in 1626, is shipwrecked off the New England coast. Christopher Sears must remain at Plimouth Plantation until another ship arrives which can take him and the 25 other castaways on to Jamestown. While he’s there, Christopher learns to make woodcuts, with which he illustrates his journal. I assume this is historical fiction, as the author also made the gorgeous hand-colored woodcuts that add so much interest to a book rich with early colonial customs, superstitions and way of life.

THE SEARCH AFTER HAPINESS - Charlotte Bronte (48)
©1969 (but written in 1829) This short novella was written by 13-year-old Charlotte Bronte who grew up to be a famous English novelist and poet, most renowned for her book Jane Eyre. It’s a simple tale about a man who leaves those he loves behind to search for happiness.
Despite the misspelling (as seen in the title and elsewhere throughout the book), improper punctuation , and run-on sentences, the writing was surprisingly mature and poetic. This might be because the Bronte children didn’t have children’s books to read when they were growing up, but read extensively from their father’s library.

The Barn at Candlewood

Here's a new painting.  This was painted "plein air" in October while I was on my artist retreat in Wisconsin. I finally got it photographed and framed, and I dropped it off at the gallery yesterday.

It's a bit different for me.  I usually paint from my own photos in the studio, where I can take my time and tweek it all I want to get details right, etc.  Plein air forces you to paint fast and loose, on location.  I plan to do more of it in the spring.

Last Salad of 2011

Here it is, my friends --- the last salad from our greenhouse for the season. And we ate it last night. The onions and broccoli were pretty strong-tasting, but the lettuce and spinach were superb! It's amazing that we still had salad fixings in January! (Speaks of a very mild December...) But last night the temperature got down in the teens and now --- "that's all she wrote," as my dad used to say.

December Book Reviews - Part 1

This was the last book I read in 2011.  In total, I read 200 books this past year. I read so many in December, I'll post half of my reviews now and half later in the month.

THE ILLUSTRATORS OF MONTMARTRE -Frank L. Emanuel (86)
©1904 I picked this book up for a couple of bucks in an antique shop in Iowa five years ago. It’s a first edition, but worthless due to its shabby condition. Eleven artists are featured, but only one that I’m familiar with: Toulouse Lautrec.
         I enjoyed reading a book that was a contemporary art critique over a century ago. This was part of the Langham Series of Art Monographs, which also contained titles about color prints of Japan, London as an Art City, Venice as an Art City, August Rodin, and Bartolozzi.
        Of poster artist A. Steinlen’s work, the author writes: First, then, he shows us the gallery of some dark, putrid Assembly Hall; the air is thick with garlic, and oaths, and gas, whose garish light illuminates a disreputable mob of frenzied anarchists, who are applauding with delirious gusto the sentiments of “Down with everything,” “Death to everyone.” …
        Just a sample of the snappy writing. Since it was about mostly obscure artists, I never expected to like this book as much as I did. It was a great look at the turn-of-the-20th-century art scene in Paris.


THE HOUSE OF PAPER - Carlos Maria Dominguez (103)
©2004 Originally written in Spanish, this book is a beautiful translation of a novella about bibliophiles.
        Shortly after Bluma Lennon, a professor of Latin American literature at Cambridge, was hit by a car and killed while walking down the street reading a just-purchased, used volume of Emily Dickenson’s poetry, a package from Uruguay containing a book by Joseph Conrad, bearing a mysterious inscription in Bluma’s handwriting, arrives in her office. It read “For Carlos, this novel that has accompanied me from airport to airport, in memory of those crazy days in Monterey. Sorry for being a bit of a witch and as I told you right from the start: you’ll never do anything that will surprise me. 8 June 1996.”
        Bluma’s colleague (the narrator), who knew that she had attended a seminar in Mexico that year, did some investigating and came up with the name of a man named Carlos from Uruguay who had been at the same seminar.
        When he decides to visit his elderly mother in his native Buenos Aires, he makes a side-trip to Uruguay to return the book to this Carlos and break the news of Bluma’s accidental death.
Carlos, it turns out, has disappeared. The narrator visits a friend of his and learns that Carlos was a life-long bibliophile, with a huge library containing many rare books, some worth up to $20,000 each. In fact, his house was so packed with his beloved books, it was if he was living in a house of paper. He had developed an elaborate index system so he could find whatever book he was looking for easily among the thousands in his collection.
        One day a small house fire destroyed the file-cabinet which contained his index. The loss was so devastating to him, even though no books were damaged, that he packed up his books and other belongings and left Montevideo to go live as a hermit on a remote beach. The narrator goes in search of him to return the book he’d sent to Bluma.
        This is a random book I plucked from my public library’s shelf because it was short. I didn’t even read the book jacket notes, and I’m glad I didn’t, because it contained a spoiler. I was ever so surprised as the mystery of Carlos and the book was unraveled. This is a delightful quick read for anyone who loves books, is a book collector, or a book hoarder, like me.



HER CHRISTMAS AT THE HERMITAGE - Helen Topping Miller (89)
©1955 This is a short historical novel (set in the early 19th century) about Andrew and Rachel Jackson. They’re celebrating Christmas in their newly built Hermitage mansion near Nashville, and Rachel is looking forward to having her husband around more, now that he’s no longer on military campaigns and has resigned the governorship of Florida. Little does she know that the turmoil of public life will soon heat up as her husband is nominated for the Presidency.
        For a more complete look at the life of Andrew and Rachel Jackson, there’s a very good biographical novel by Irving Stone called The President’s Lady.


HOW READING CHANGED MY LIFE - Anna Quindlen (82)
©1998 In this short book, the author tells about how reading has affected her life, both as a child bookworm, and later as a journalist and writer. She gives many examples and descriptions of her favorite books through the years. She also touches on such subjects as book banning and the future of “real” books as e-readers take over the market. Easily read in one setting, I found her reflections very interesting.


THE WRITING LIFE - Annie Dillard (111)
© 1989 This author’s writing is lyrical, metaphoric, and visually descriptive prose that describes the what, where, how and why of writing. At times she compares it to a painter and his or her art. I enjoyed her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek last year, so I felt right at home with this little book of memoir-essays.


1491 - Charles C. Mann (337)
©2005 Who would believe that pre-Columbian history of the Western Hemisphere would be so fascinating? Thirty years of recent research in the fields of anthropology and archeology have come to the startling conclusion that not only did humans exist in the western hemisphere a lot earlier than first believed, but also that the population was much larger than previously thought. Recommended for those interested in the history of the “New World” before the Europeans arrived. 


TRAIL OF THREAD - Linda K. Hubalek (101)
©1995 I think this book would be considered historical fiction. It’s based on the author’s family history, and tells the story of her great-great-great-grandmother, who moved with her family in a covered wagon from Kentucky to Kansas in 1854. The story is told in a series of letters to loved ones back home in Kentucky and vividly describes what was involved in preparing for such a move and the hardships they endured on the trail. 


THE BOSS DOG - MFK Fisher (118)
©1991 The worst dog book I ever read. There’s not much of a story here. Two little American girls and their mother are spending a year in Aix-en-Provence, France. Their chief pastime, it seems, is sitting around in sidewalk cafes people-watching. A recurring character is this weird, aloof little dog that’s a regular visitor to the cafes. The writing was too “elegant”, or should I say downright boring. Good descriptions of place and French food though.


ROOM - Emma Donoghue (321)
© 2010 When I googled to find out more about the book, I learned that the novel was inspired by the Fritzl case in Austria, but it reminded me a lot of the Jaycee Dugard story.
        This story of a young woman who was abducted and held captive by a pervert in his backyard shed for seven years is told through the “voice” of her 5-year-old son who was born in the shed during the second year of her captivity. At first I was put-off by the child’s narration which seemed contrived, but once I got into the story, it no longer bothered me that much. I usually don’t read fiction about abuse, because the real thing is bad enough. The book was both disturbing and inspirational.


HOWLING MAD - Peter David (201)
©1989 What happens when a wolf is bitten by a werewolf? Chaos ensues. This is the story of a Canadian wolf, bitten by a werewolf, who ends up in a rundown New York City zoo, where he escapes and is rescued by a young animal-rights worker. This is a horror story told with humor, the tale of a wereman and the woman who loves him. Action-packed, and a quick read, with a little vampiracy thrown in for good measure.


JIM THE BOY - Tony Early (227)
©2000 This story covers one year in the life of a 10-year-old North Carolina boy growing up during the Great Depression. Young Jim was born one week after his daddy, Jim Sr., died of a heart attack at age 23. Jim’s mother vows never to remarry, believing that she must remain faithful to her husband in death until they meet again in the great by-and-by.
        Jim is raised by his widowed mother and her three bachelor brothers, the Uncles. The wise uncles teach Jim to be honest, hard-working, and compassionate towards others. This is a sweet little story about family and friendship ties.

Dance of Pisces

"Dance of Pisces," wax sculpture

This is a wax sculpture I made in 3-D Design. It's based on an Escher design. It's about 12" across. I made one plaster of Paris mold, and then cast three fish in blue wax and three in orange, and painted the details with acrylic paint. Then I interlocked the pieces and mounted them on a piece of foam backing.