How Cartoons Taught Me About the Wild World Beyond My Fenced-in Backyard

In our old house with all of its charming characteristics, unseen openings allow entrance for mice. The first time I noticed pieces of oatmeal in a little trail leading to the door of the attic, I thought “How precious.” I imagined the animated mice Jaq and Gus in Cinderella with their cheek pouches bulging and…

A Richly Textured Life

Must the rough always be made smooth? Or so it appears in life, or at least with our public facades and selfies. In art texture with all of its diversities is noted as one of the seven basic elements of art, valued for its smooth and rough, its many values (more about that later). In truth,…

Our History is Our Art in the Making  

Look carefully at the photos that follow: What do you kinda see in the first one? Then with a new perspective? Finally, its far-reaching strands? Can we grasp the power of seeing one’s almost completed blueprint in action, one strand connected to another into its ultimate design? I could have missed this tenacious spider’s artwork…