Katherine Keenum

My intention has been to write a series of posts on the physical senses—sight, sound, taste, feel, smell—how we experience them, how they combine, and how writers can make better use of them in evoking the living world. But you know the story: it's been a busy week. Then this little guy  Read More 

We can detect movement most easily through sight: we see something change position in relation to other objects. We hear movement: rustling, whooshing, gurgling; Doppler changes in volume and pitch. We feel it as changes in pressure against our skin or bodies: mothwing zephyrs, vibrating tuning forks that buzz in our fingers, the ripple  Read More 

After reading David Abram’s deeply thought-provoking book, Becoming Animal, I have been thinking about what it means to open oneself to the world through all of the bodily senses and more particularly how to incorporate such awareness into fiction. Can an artistic medium effectively communicate what is perceived through seemingly unrelated senses? Read More 

At special exhibitions, I sometimes play the game of deciding which picture or object I would take home with me if I could. I’ve just been to the Clark Art Institute to see Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection, which  Read More 

Blog post alert: James Gurney’s post on Von Hayek’s Animal-Painting Academy is the source of this photo of women artists en plein air. Besides the art-historical angle (and the clothes), I love the farmers in the distance watching. What story do you suppose they might tell?! Read More 

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on Juana Romani, here’s a drawing of her by the prolific painter, sculptor, and Art Nouveau designer Victor Prouvé. I love the informality of the portfolio propped on a chair—not to mention the formality of the hat.

Prouvé was as new to me as she was. The best article about him turned up by a quick Google search is Victor Prouvé : un artiste transversal (in French). Read More 

I wish I had known about the artist’s model and painter, Juana Romani when I was writing Where the Light Falls. She actually posed for Carolus-Duran and studied with his associate, Jacques Henner—although, maybe it’s just as well  Read More 

Sarah Stilwell Weber is known primarily for her illustration of children, which fits nicely with my heroine Mattie who works in children’s publishing; but I have selected this Collier cover because it is so richly striking. Weber studied with Howard Pyle and was associated with his famous female students, the Red Rose Girls. This picture suggests to me that she also kept up with larger art world and knew the work of Gustav Klimt. It’s always a mistake to think that creative people are limited to whatever work makes them famous or pays the bills!

For more about Weber, click here and here. Read More 

It’s always a thrill to encounter a picture that opens into a world you are reading about or imagining. This morning, when I checked Charley Parker’s blog, Lines and Colors, I was rewarded with glimpses of French landscapes and architectural details by artist Jérémy Soheylian which helped me visualize the setting for a current story of mine. Read More 

Blog post tip: A list of earnings of the 25 top illustrators of 1910 (along with short bios and several examples of work) is posted at Money in the Face of the Modern Girl. Although only three were women, it’s interesting that their earnings placed them in the median. Read More