PARIS

My daughter’s in Paris with her friend’s family and thanks to the digital realm I have received short but sweet messages from her. She loves the city and especially Montmartre. 

I can’t help but remember my last journey to Europe and to Paris. It was 1990 and I managed to get a travel scholarship from the University of Cincinnati to aid me in researching my thesis as a graduate Art History student. The thesis - never completed - was The Artist in Old Age/Titian and Picasso. Paris was beautiful of course, but at night, shimmering in lights along the Seine, it was no place to be alone. One needs a loved one near by in a romantic setting like that.

My Chloe is only sixteen and here she is basking in European culture.The history there is overwhelming, yet a visit to the Picasso museum clings to my memory most vividly. Situated in a very old hotel, a completely non-museum-like place, it is comfortable and different. It is also the place where I was able to see a number of his very late works for the first time. The greatest painter ever, he never misses, rarely disappoints and is forever an endless universe of ideas.

Certainly, the Louvre cannot be missed. The cool, tightly wound canvasses of Poussin reveal their wonderful mystery and design when seen in such abundance. The glass pyramid was a new addition when I arrived. Stepping off the escalator that lowers visitors to the entrance area, I saw I.M. Pei with a group of people and I imagined his excitement even as I questioned his creation.

My daughter’s in Paris and tomorrow taking a night train to Amsterdam. I am happy that she is seeing another part of this amazing planet and getting a chance to add to her awareness that the United States is not the center of the world.

Christmas in July

Anyone who works with art materials knows that they are expensive and keep getting more and more expensive. As bad as it is to shop for groceries (defribrillators should be stationed in every aisle) going into an art supply store is an exercise in sheer terror.

So it was with extraordinary glee that I listened as my sister-in-law offered me free art supplies during my recent visit. The supplies were leftovers from a store she had opened in another town and had to close. She pulled four large, plastic boxes from underneath a bed and we carried them into her dining room.

“Take one of each” she announced. And so I sat at the table like a child at the greatest birthday party ever, carefully rummaging through tubes of paint, brushes, bottles of medium, boxes of charcoal. Everyone else was in the next room. I was alone with my glittering field of riches, happy as I could possibly be.

Shelley’s generosity was enormous and for an artist, especially one as financially challenged as this one, being given free art materials was/is an infusion of life-blood, a gift of the magical stuff that allows ideas and imaginings to become visually present.

Thank you.

Southern Voyage

Only two hours ago I returned from a voyage to South Carolina to see my brother and sister-in-law. I travelled in air-conditioned comfort thanks to my sister and her comfy car and we went with our father and his companion....it was her idea.

This is a place with churches on every block it seems and yellow pine trees all over the place. My sister-in-law Shelley’s family is deeply rooted in this land - easily traced back to the seventeenth century. Her father died recently and we travelled to his house, built in 1915 by family and the place she and my brother aim to move before too long. A sense of history and southern culture surround one there, things reaching out to you from long ago, some of them withered and barely able to whisper their presence. The house is covered floor to walls to ceiling in yellow pine. I walked through it like a visitor to a museum, awed and amused and welcomed.

My father has early Alzheimer’s and certain questions came forth again and again. It was no big deal to repeat the answer to “Where did you go to college?”.

We were in a comfortable realm, spoiled by two wonderful hosts, fed like the world might end tomorrow. We welcomed “Happy Hour” like true vacationers and did little or nothing with joy and exuberance.


A visit to the original family homestead revealed the remains of a once-proud house now barely standing. Who knows what secrets remain behind those weather-beaten walls, tales of a world where slaves were kept and survival meant something unfathomable to us driving in for a quick look?

The draw of Shelley’s family history is what gave this visit its richness and curiosity and sense of exploration, more than the local sights. I envy that kind of family history documented and present in surroundings. I have no idea what towns my relatives come from, only the countries: Germany, Russia, Lithuania (perhaps), Poland. No specifics. No one seems to know. I suppose that since I am well intrenched in middle age, these things have come to be of greater importance than ever before. Maybe it is time to find some answers.

Pinot for Charlie

I’m working on a difficult job in a large expensive home - a faux green lacquer wall finish in a dining room. The pressure is on to make it work. My hand hurts because I am aging and my body has had enough. I put on the gray primer with only a brush, as I and my assistant will do for the entire job. Brushing, brushing, all day brushing.

The clients fortunately are lovely people, appreciative, patient and friendly.

I strike up a conversation with the man of the house about wine. I know from working for these folks a decade ago that John is crazy about wine. I let him know that I have re-discovered wine this year, found that it no longer makes me sleepy. I have started to understand the subtlety, nuance, variety, mysteriousness of wine. We talk for a while about it and I hit him up for information gleaned from his many years as an aficionado.

Minutes before I am ready to leave, he walks in and hands me a bottle of my favorite kind of wine: pinot noir. He says that this one is his favorite and mentions that it is a tad beyond the price range we had been discussing (below $20.00). I am thunderstruck and suggest that perhaps I should save it. “No,” he says, “ you should drink it this weekend. Life is too short.” And so I did. And it was ethereal, balanced, smooth, wonderful. It played itself out on the center of the tongue, grape flavors below and spices above. Magnificent gift.

My sister’s dog Charlie died today. Charlie was huge - a golden-doodle, I think - and more like a person than a dog, as sweet as could be. He went everywhere with she and her husband. He died on the way to the animal hospital. Only four years old. Perhaps blogging about wine is superficial in the wake of their loss. But I am thinking that it is the wonderful, beautiful, mysterious and profound things in this life that wake us up and cut deep into our selves. Passion comes in many shapes and sizes. Bless you Charlie.