Katherine Keenum

Dec 25, 2020 10:50 AM EST

Hi Katherine, the poem was beautiful. I enjoyed the perspective of the midwife. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.

- Pat Franzino

Dec 25, 2020 10:59 AM EST

Dear Pat,
Thank you for following the link to this poem In these strange times, we need to keep connected however we can. Best wishes to you for a Merry Christmas and a bright, healthy New Year!

- Katherine

Dec 23, 2017 11:15 AM EST

I love the size of each room but not the ostentatious ornamentation. That would make me feel smothered by all of it. A sparse, empty room would be ideal to practice my skills in ballroom dancing.

Queen Victoria had a very small Christmas tree. From the BBC production on Public Television about a young Victoria, I think she preferred to be in a cozier environment in the private rooms she lived in, even though it required her to live in palaces and castles.

Maybe she didn't feel the same way about celebrating Christmas after Prince Albert died, even though she had nine children.

- Patricia Franzino

Dec 23, 2017 11:35 AM EST

And wouldn't it be fun to see you dance, Pat, with a princely partner! Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a new year spent in ballrooms, palaces, or wherever you best express your art.

- Katherine Keenum

Dec 11, 2017 6:21 AM EST

These artists gravitated toward similar ideas from the middle ages and Elizabethan times. I wonder if they enjoyed the lushness of the dress and hair to portray on canvas as well as the plaintive looks of women from this era.

They were obviously high-born, bought and sold to the highest bidder for greater prestige through title, land, money. If they survived childbirth and the husband they had to deal with and diseases and managed to thrive despite all of this, they were extremely fortunate.

It's typical the artists were not acclaimed in their lifetimes, and without birth control became sidetracked by family. It's still hard to manage both career and child rearing. Men have an easier time in the past and present.

It's good to see men being called on their behavior. I'd like to see female abusers of men in the work place brought to public attention too. No one has the right to infringe on someone else's personal or career life in any way.

- Patricia Franzino