Things come together sometimes to open new vistas and set off resonances.
A few weeks ago, a review led me to buy Too Brave to Dream, a collection of previously unpublished poems that Welsh priest and poet R. S. Thomas Read More
Picturing a World
Surrealism—Leonora Carrington
February 1, 2017
Things come together sometimes to open new vistas and set off resonances.
A few weeks ago, a review led me to buy Too Brave to Dream, a collection of previously unpublished poems that Welsh priest and poet R. S. Thomas Read More
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Girl writing—Henriette Browne
January 18, 2017
As we go into an uncertain future on Inauguration Day 2017, I am calming myself at night by reading Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books. As girls, lots of female writers identified with Jo March of Little Women. Betsy Ray was an even greater heroine to me. Read More
Mousehole Cat
December 23, 2016
One of my Christmas Eve Eve rituals is to read The Mousehole Cat. To my delight I have just found a YouTube video on The Making of The Mousehole Cat Book with interviews of author Antonia Barber, illustrator Nicola Bayley, Read More
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Marianne Stokes’ Madonna
December 16, 2016
A post of Marianne Stokes’ Madonna and Child at It’s About Time caught my eye partly for the serene loveliness of the composition, partly for the Crivelli-like use of gold ornamentation, and partly for the date (which is only one year off Read More
Joan Carlile at the Tate
September 25, 2016
Blog tip: A portrait of a woman by artist Joan Carlile, ca. 1650, has been purchased by Tate Britain in London. Read more at the History Blog post, Tate acquires its earliest portrait by woman artist.
Laura Johnson Knight
September 1, 2016
Website tip: A recent post at It’s About Time introduced me to English artist Laura Johnson Knight
As summer nears its end, this image from 1908, the year my current work-in-progress is set, overlaps nicely with my continuing interest Read More
As summer nears its end, this image from 1908, the year my current work-in-progress is set, overlaps nicely with my continuing interest Read More
Florence Fuller
August 29, 2016
Terri Windling’s Myth & Moor is a great source of inspiration for writers, readers, and lovers of images related to the mythopoeia. Her August 26th post on Children, reading, and Tough Magic is trove of pictures of children reading and quotations on the value of fantasy stories. It also brought my attention another of Jeanette’s younger contemporaries who studied at the Académie Julian—Florence Fuller (1867–1946). Born in South Africa, Fuller is classed as an Australian artist; for although she studied in Paris and spent time in England and India, she grew up in Australia and her most productive years were spent there. Her work is collected primarily in Australian museums. In 1905, she became a Theosophist, a reminder to me that the occult was a part of the world around my heroines Jeanette and Mattie (though not, I think, of much interest to either of them). Read More
Henrietta Rae
August 25, 2016
Today’s image is from a distressing Spitalsfield Life post on plans to build a mezzanine in the ambulatory of London’s Royal Exchange. If built, the mezzanine will obstruct views of richly detailed turn-of-the-century murals of scenes from English history by several artists. I’m appalled by the proposed vandalism, but at least the post led me to Henrietta Rae. Rae was an almost exact contemporary of Jeanette, and her mural art is a reminder of the beautiful mural work done by female illustrators and fine artists of the period (the best known in America being the the Red Rose Girls). Read More
Clara Miller Burd
May 16, 2016
Always on the lookout for women artists who were working during the time period of my new novel, ANONMITY, I was pleased this morning to stumble across Clara Miller Burd (1873–1933). She was born in New York City, studied art there and in Paris, and Read More
Harriet Backer
April 29, 2016
Website tip: Blue Interior by artist Harriet Backer is featured on today’s Lines and Colors. I have shown here another of her interiors, a Breton kitchen, that I wish I had known when I was writing Where the Light Falls. Not only does it illustrate the Gernagans’ kitchen, it fits perfectly with Jeanette’s motif of rooms as “portraits without people.” Read More