Exhibition alert: Shopping and the big Paris department stores are a motif in Where the Light Falls. The emergence of such stores really did have a big impact on 19th and 20th C life. And if you're lucky enough to be in Paris (well, maybe better after crowds for the Olympics clear out), check out the new show at the Musée des Arts decoratifs, La Naissance des grands magasins: Mode, design, jouets, publicité, 1852–1925. It runs through October 13, 2024. The French website has lots of images and also awordless video that gives a quick glimpse at the sort of objects on display. A short article in Apollo Magazine and a long one in the Guardian provide information in English.
Picturing a World
Kamala and green!
July 25, 2024
Blog post alert: Maybe Frieseke's parasol isn't quite Brat green, and Kamala Harris's campaign is certainly more energizing than relaxing. All the same, doesn't it suddenly feel like a happy summer? If you can't get out into a garden of your own, visit Barbara Wells Barudy's blog post on Late 19C Women & Gardens & Parasols to enjoy Frederick Carl Frieseke's sunny take on the topic.
Between now and November
July 22, 2024
At 2:00 PM Sunday, I finished my after-lunch read, The Coldest Case by Martin Walker, and checked my iPad—just in time to see that President Biden will not run for re-election. It seems the right decision. Still, I think doses of genre fiction will be necessary to get me through to November. And Walker's Bruno, Chief of Police, series has the added pleasure of Bruno's Cookbook to illustrate the food that plays a big part in each novel.
Merlin Dreams
July 19, 2024
Hoo boy! How's this for a follow-up to yesterday's post? A transformation of every major element of Hollar's Pedlar into something lively, colorful, and strange. Lion-dog: otter. Skeleton: dragon. Peddler: traveller. Pannier: mystery box. It's Alan Lee's illustration for a story in Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson. I have just requested the book through interlibrary loan to find out what's going on. (As an author, I encourage people to buy books. As a library trustee and environmentalist, I urge you to remember what marvellous resources the country's public libraries provide.) As for this picture, I guess I'll wait to see what Dickinson was up to, but wouldn't it be fun to make up a story of one's own to go with it?
Peddler's pack
July 18, 2024
For my fantasy work-in-progress, I was looking for details of what a foot peddler might carry. Up came this etching by Wenceslaus Hollar after a picture in The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein the Younger. The wicker pannier resembles one in The Wayfarer by Hieronymous Bosch. Check. But what about the animal?
Trying to stay sane
July 14, 2024
In the wake of last night's assassination attempt, I am staying clear of the news on the theory that there will be far too much chatter and misinformation afloat. Instead, I am working on maps for my current fantasy project and looking at pictures I love—like Charles Vess's illustration for Ursula K. Le Guin's short story, "High Marsh" in The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition. For those of you who are fascinated by the interplay of artist and author, check out Le Guin's post, A Work in Progress: Earthsea Sketches by Charles Vess. I'm also reading Le Guin's The Dispossessed in the Library of America edition. Let's all try to stay sane.
Back Through the Flaming Door.
July 11, 2024
Liz Williams' Fallow Sisters novels were my 2023 summer treat. When I learned that Bee Fallows is the main character in a short story in Williams' new collection, Back through the Flaming Door, my reaction? Gotta have it! I ordered it through Bookshop.org. The book arrived. Naturally, Bee's story, "Saint Cold," was the first I read. Now I've gone back to the beginning and am reading the rest in order, one every day or so. Besides introducing me to the range of Williams' imaginary worlds, they have made me think about a story technique.
Labyrinths and landscapes
July 8, 2024
In order to force myself to work out a village layout for a story setting, I've been collecting drawings and photographs of medieval villages. One of the most useful is an archeological site at Gainsthorpe in Yorkshire. A different archeological discovery is a Labyrinthine structure found on hilltop in Crete. That History Blog post sent me to an earlier period, but the same sort of stimulation toward inventing place.
Cannon on the Fourth
July 4, 2024
Well, the Supreme Court dropped a bombshell. Still love the red, white, and blue. BOOM!
Tree and River
July 1, 2024
Congratulations to Aaron Becker! His wordless picture book, The Tree and the River, is the 2024 double winner of England's prestigious Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration (awarded by an expert panel of librarians) and the Yoto Carnegie Shadowers Choice Medal for Illustration, which is decided by children and library users. It's one of those picture books in which the more you look, the more you see. In double-page spread after double-page spread, it depicts the colonization of a beautiful valley, its gradual transformation to village to town to city to ruin to—well, you'll have to get hold of the book to find out!