Seeking the Sublime in the Everyday

  I've been thinking about whales-- I'm not sure why.  I remembered this drawing that I came upon in a magazine back in the days of my little black book collages.   Can Leviathan Long endure so Wide a Chase? I was entranced and then haunted by this strange image but I didn't explore it.  that was before I knew about the internet and Google.  But this week I googled the title and learned that it's a quote from Moby Dick.  “the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff.” I also looked up the artist, Cynthia A. Osborne and found a lot of her work but not this one. Sad to say, she died in 2018. I'd love to learn more about this image--it's a lithograph.  What are those women doing? Dancing? Exercising?  Why are are the people rushing to ...

Here's the Star Spangled Banner! I went through all thirty volumes of my collage books to find what I did with the Stars and Stripes.                                                                                                                                                                           F ireworks and Chuck Berry. A carved Uncle Sam and a giant flag. Jasper Johns, Winslow Homer and  a New York City Skyline. A flag and a little cabin. You know who. Jasper Johns again. Just the stars this time. It's still a grand old flag!

So nice to see Bernie at the Inauguration.   Since then he's been everywhere. Here in my neighborhood, stalking my cousin Tom in LA;  he's everywhere, and his team is selling his image on sweatshirts and everything printable, making a bundle for the Vermont Foodbank and Meals on Wheels and inspiring creativity and generosity all over the place.  The company that made his jacket gave away fifty jackets just like his to women and little kids!   Here's Bernie celebrating his election as Mayor of Burlington in 1981.  In 2015 when Bernie ran for president and everyone was saying "Who's that?"  this picture, taken by my brother Rob, was all over the news. This week Rob added the mittens to bring the image up to date.  That's not Rob's first dance with fame.   You may have seen this photo in 2012 or so. It went viral. the internet doesn't seem to know who took it, but it was Rob.  Everyone thought those cows had something to say. At one point this w...

In all the talk and uproar around statues, I've found some that we can ponder and appreciate. This is Doctor Benjamen Rush, Founding Father, a signer of the  Declaration of Independence, physician, writer, educator, humanitarian,   author of one of the first major essays against slavery in the Colonies,  founder of the first anti-slavery society in America. He said, " Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them..." He wasn't perfect; in 1778 he wrote an anonymous letter criticizing George Washington and suggesting he be replaced as Head of the Continental Army, and this fervent abolitionist actually owned a slave.  Huh?  It's always complicated--he never said much about this; as I would imagine not. As an educator Rush believed that, as nurturers of virtue in society, women deserved to be educated  and patriotism  should be deeply ingrained in women's thoughts...

Happy Birthday to George Washington. When that other George, King George III of England, was told that at the end of his term of office President Washington would relinquish power and retire to his farm in Virginia, he said, "Then he's the greatest man in the history of the world." Yes, the father of our country was a great man but not perfect, because, oh, yeah, slavery. It's hard to love Washington as whole-heartedly as we love Lincoln. "Merci, Monsieur le Marquis.  De rien, Monsieur le Presidente."  In this collage,   General Washington expresses his thanks to the Marquis de Lafayette for his help in winning American independence.  It's a statue that stands in Place des Etats Unis in Paris. A French coq and a Louisiana heron look on. The snow-covered trees are a reminder of the winter at Valley Forge. In a New York Times op-ed this week, Alexis Coe, author of You Never Forget Your First, A Biography of George Washington ,  says that ...