A VIsit To The Detroit Institute of Arts

Uncle Tom and Little Eva, Duncanson

Indian Telegraph by Stanley

Head of a Negro by Copely

Watson and the Shark by Copely

On Sunday afternoon we visited the Detroit Institute of Arts. They have some real treasures. Recent financial issues have brought the art to the table as a way of raising money for the bankrupt city. So far the art has been protected from sale.

Frederick Church's Cotopaxi

George Washington by Peale

Vincent Van Gogh self portrait

When I was in Eight Grade my homeroom and music teacher arranged for our class to go on a series of cultural field trips. The art museum was included. Afterwards I begged for my family to take me back.

In the Garden by Mary Cassett

A Woman by Mogdalini 

Matisse

Van Gogh

Every visit I see familiar paintings which I recall from childhood and notice others that had not struck me before. There were also paintings on loan from other collections, keeping the experience fresh. These were new to me:

Three Top Sergeants by George Luks

Fisher Boy by Charles Webster Hawthrone

Merrymakers by Carolus-Duran

The museum has learning experience throughout. Whistler's painting Black and Gold was controversial in its day and children could read about it and comment.

We bought a membership although we can attend free of charge as our county taxes helps to support the museum. I look forward to many more visits.

The Lily Pond by Charles Harry Eaton

An Insect Notebook

I picked up a 1920s "Insect Notebook" at a book sale. It is at once an identification book and a journal for keeping track of sightings. I gave it to my brother but first scanned these wonderful line drawings of butterflies and Moths.

I thought the art could be used in so many wonderful ways: embroidery, coloring pages, applique, card making... What would you do with these images? 

My Grandfather's Edgar Allen Poe

I discovered the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe when I was eleven or twelve. My Grandfather Lynne O. Ramer had a 1904 Commemorative set of the works of Edgar Allan Poe which he had purchased in his college days in the 1920s.

I borrowed those books over and over until Gramps just gave them to me. I most loved the poems, especially The Raven.

"And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before..."

Such wonderful language! Such words!

It is hard to imagine my grandfather--a church deacon, engineer, and mathematics professor-- reading Poe. His college library included Vanity Fair by Thackeray and The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Hugo, The Last of the Mohicans by Cooper, essays by Emerson and poetry by Lowell and Wordworth. Poe seems to be a wild card in this library.

When I was older Gramps lent me books of historical fiction (Kenneth Roberts), non-fiction (Arch Merrill's books about early New York State history; I Was A Fugitive From A Chain Gang) science (Velikovsky's pseudo science book Worlds in Collision); and politics (The Political Plague of America a self published book by someone he knew and which he highly edited in the book). I never knew him to read poetry or fantastic stories.

Strange tales and the macabre' were not new to me. I'd grown up on "Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" television shows! I had seen Hitchcock movies; when my folks went to the drive-in movies I was supposed to be asleep in the back of the car but instead saw "The Birds", "Marnie", and "The Amazing Shrinking Man". (Yes I did have nightmares after viewing these movies.)

I read the stories of terror and horror and the early detective stories. But it was the poems I returned to most often, and this volume shows the most wear of all the set.

 .

Over the next years he gave me a number of books to read. I borrowed 101 Famous Poems so often he also gave it to me. I previously have blogged about at
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/09/one-hundred-and-one-famous-poems.html

Eventually I inherited most of Gramp's college books, each with his own book mark. As an orphan boy working his way through college he would have had to sacrifice to find the money to buy his precious books.  I always loved his bookmark.

Some great info about Poe and The Raven can be found at
http://knowingpoe.thinkport.org/writer/annotated.asp
and
http://www.poedecoder.com/essays/raven/

A fun but through article on all aspects of The Raven: http://www.shmoop.com/the-raven/

An article that explains why Poe chose to use the pseudonym Quarles when he published The Raven
can be found at http://www.jstor.org/stable/27533122?seq=1

The complete poems of Edgar Allen Poe can be found
at http://docsouth.unc.edu/southlit/poeraven/poeraven.html

The end of Volume IX  has advertisements including this one for Funk & Wagner's revised and enlarged English Synonyms, Antonyms and Prepositions, "Exquisitely bound in full crushed Levant, gilt edges, hand tooled, raised bands, boxed for $10":

The Wonder of Words!

Have you ever fully realized the wonder and witchery of words? A single word can be a blessing or a curse, an incantation or a prayer, a blow or a caress. And the study of words is thrilling! Thousands of men and women who daily use the English language get no further than a stinted vocabulary, when a little study would soon give them mastery of a vocabulary that would express countless shades of meaning.

That copywriter was right about the power of words. And Poe's poetry is a wonderful example.

"The Printed Square" Review and More Handkerchiefs

 The Printed Square by Nicky Albrechtsen is the latest addition to my collection of books on handkerchiefs. All but two or three hankies presented are new to me, and even those are in a different color way than what I own.

The author offers an overview of the history of handkerchiefs including their social significance, the various materials used to produce handkerchiefs, especially during WWII, and the rise of designer handkerchiefs. I especially appreciate her delineating characteristics of handkerchiefs by decade. The 240 photographed handkerchiefs, dating from 1920 to 1960, are arranged by color groupings with one handkerchief per page.

Each was chosen for it's overall design. Most are 'generic' printed cotton, with floral or geometric motifs, yet each has a nice visual impact on the page.

Most books have focused on handkerchief categories such as novelty, designer, souvenir, or hand work embellished. Here we come to understand the wonderful design of the hankies women actually carried in their pockets and purses, the ones not saved special. Some even show wear and holes. The collector saw beyond condition, appraising the design quality of the piece. The designs have an exuberance about them, an energy that is delightful to the eye. This is wonderful eye-candy for collectors.

Harper Deisgn
ISBN 978-06-212338-1
$24.95 hardbound

For your viewing pleasure here are some 'generic' handkerchiefs from my own collection.

Someone embellished this with French Knot embroidery

The white background shows through this thin linen material under the flash 

Machine embroidery in black

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The Language of Hoofbeats by Catherine Hyde Ryan

Early after I got my Kindle I downloaded several books by Catherine Hyde Ryan. She has been a happy discovery and I have read five of her books in the last few years. Hyde's books always leaves one feeling elevated and optimistic about the human race. Her characters are flawed and damaged but grow into a more healthy version of themselves. Her publisher Lake Union Publishing pre-approved me to read any of their NetGalley offerings and it included The Language of Hoofbeats. They also published The Banks of Certain Rivers which I read and reviewed last month.

The Language of Hoofbeats is a well written book with great characters, socially relevant issues, and a realistic but sanguine outcome to the central crisis.

We encounter a Modern Family of the 21st century: two moms with an adopted son and two foster kids. The adopted eight year old son is a lovable and sweet child. Their foster son Mandy is aloof but no trouble. He misses his mom who is wrongfully imprisoned. The newest addition is Star, a difficult and unlikeable girl whose mother is mentally ill.  

The family has moved and their new neighbor is a sixty year old woman who literally scares folk away she is that mean. He husband has left her after she could not tell him one thing that makes her happy. She can't bear to take care of her deceased daughter's horse, but also can't bear to lose the one thing her daughter loved.

Star secretly takes on the horse's care and under threat of separation the girl runs away with the horse. The two families are forced to work together creating a domino effect of changes in all their lives.  

I enjoyed this book as much as the others I have read. Don't Let Me Go was about a little girl who enlists the help of her apartment neighbors, creating  a surrogate family while her mother struggles with addiction. When You Were Older deals with racial profiling after 9-11. The main character narrowly missed dying in a Twin Tower office and has returned to his small home town. He meets an Egyptian woman whose father becomes a target of violence. Electric God is about a tormented  man full of anger that dates back to the death of his brother. When I Found You concerns a man who finds a baby in the woods and wants to keep him. But the baby has a grandmother. Fifteen years later the grandmother returns the boy, now with a police record, to him.

The author is most well known for Pay It  Forward upon which the movie starring Haley Joel Osment was based and  became the motivation for the social movement and foundation of paying it forward.