Galleries

Artist of the moment…….California Impressionist Clarence Hinkle….

Diattaart Blog

In the gallery the first painting is by Hinkle’s first teacher, WF Jackson. The second if by Karl Dempwolf. The rest are by Clarence Hinkle.

Clarence Hinkle was a spectacular painter of the outdoors and a leader of artists that painted directly from life in California.  Hinkle was born in 1880 in the city of Auburn, California. His father was the owner of a business that painted carriages.

As a young man Hinkle was able to mentor under artist William Franklin Jackson. Jackson was the most sought after painter in Sacramento, California at his death and taught many students that went on to become well known in the California Impressionist scene.

Below is a signature work of Jackson’s and see the influence he had on Hinkle. Hinkle is also compared to Granville Redmond. Redmond was deaf since an early age as a result of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906…

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California’s old master

Wonderful article about one of my favorite painters.

Art Matters

Murals by William Keith hang in the Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco.
Photograph by Jim Karageorge

ART HISTORY | CHARLES KEELER

A great personality was evident to all who came in contact with William Keith. A rather thick-set Scot of medium height, with a head of true nobility — a broad face, wide forehead, kindly gray eyes, ample, well-shaped nose, a moustache and small beard hiding his lips, and a mass of tousled grizzly gray hair surmounting his Jovian head — such was the impression one got of him at first meeting. He generally wore a suit of fine checked gray, more often with the careless abandon of an artist than with the neatly pressed creases of a business or professional man.

To his intimate friends he was always gracious, although they sometimes found him in an exuberant mood and again utterly dejected and despondent. It all depended on whether…

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Noz

A fantastically good story from Mike Cooley.

Vampire Maman

Noz

By Mike Cooley

The thump woke me up. Noz looked at me, blood dripping from his fangs. The body was on the floor in the kitchen; she looked young. The cigarette between my stained fingers was still lit and my hair was matted against the side of my face. I was lying on the ratty couch and an empty bottle of something cheap was on the carpet between me and the dark glass table. The cabin smelled ashes, spilled red wine, and fate.

“Noz. What have I told you about bringing home strangers?” I nodded toward the young lady, who was lying on her back, motionless and pale. Her hair was sandy blonde, and she was wearing a jade necklace, a turquoise blouse, and black shorts. The smell of her perfume wafted toward me, floral and ephemeral.

Nozfuratu’s satisfied grin morphed into a look of apology. He licked his…

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How to write a response to a love letter

Vampire Maman

How to write a response to a love letter (which is more fun if it isn’t addressed to YOU)

Part One: How to Write A Love Letter

How would I write a love letter?

As if I’d tell my teen that. Teens usually know but forget as they grow old and fearful.

I would write it by hand on a yellow legal pad with pencil. I would write it over and over until it was exactly right. Then I’d get a fine piece of stationary and write the perfect letter with perfect script.

There are different kinds of love letters. There are those that say:  Hey, I really like you a lot, let’s get together. There are love letters that are heart breaking and say: I’m lost without you. There are those that say: You are the one, the only one, the absolute only one. And there are those that say:…

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2019 Summer Reading: Long Books You’ll Savor

Vampire Maman

Some stories just can’t be told in three hundred and fifty pages.

Some stories need at least eight hundred pages, or twelve hundred, or even a few more than that.

For me long books are like road trips. Epic road trips. My kind of road trips.

Don’t be intimidated by long books. Read them. Savor them. Enjoy them. Add one to your summer reading list, even if you have to bring it into fall.

Seriously, I kid you not, I read Itby Stephen King in one weekend. It is 1,138 pages. No problem. The next week I read The Stand, also by Stephen King . It is a little over 800 pages.

Here is my list. I might not have pictures for all of them. I don’t have exact page counts for all of them because that varies depending on addition and media, but all are long. I will…

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2019 Summer Reading: Escape into Reality – Nonfiction Adventures

Vampire Maman

2019 Summer Reading: Escape into Reality With Four Nonfiction Adventures

Today I’m featuring a quartet of absolutely wonderful books that will suck you into adventure, mystery, and places you’ve never imagined you’d be. You’ll meet a colorful, dangerous, interesting, lovely, and witty characters. Best of all it is all true.

Good nonfiction is a wonderful thing. I think about some of my favorites that I could read again and again and again. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness is an autobiographical work by Edward Abbey is one book that should be on every book list and every book shelf. Arctic Dreamsby Barry Lopez moved my soul. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson made me think and also made me laugh almost unlike any book I’ve ever read.

Copies of these books, even those now out of print, can be…

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The 2019 Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts at the Crest Theater

Vampire Maman

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For years we’ve looked forward to watching the Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts. Holy shit in a wheel barrow, this year the real show was watching the stunned movie goers stagger out of the theater shell shocked and depressed.

One had a slightly bitter sweet message, but the rest were just depressing.

Skin (United States)
The was the only American film in the group. It was sort of a skin-head white-trash revenge film. It was squirmy and uncomfortable with a totally unrealistic ending that sort of wasted the message of the movie. We came up with a lot of much better endings and resolutions.

Marguerite (Canada)
This was a bitter sweet story of an elderly woman and her caretaker. The message was about missed love and understanding. It had a bitter sweet ending. This was the only one that didn’t make me want to cry, scream, or throw something.

Madre…

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A Documentary Tribute to Lauren’s Cause

The Not-Dying Girl

ndg sand coverSince around September of 2017, we have been working on a labor of love to continue Lauren’s cause of raising awareness for childhood cancer.  Lauren had been on the Capital Public Radio show “Insight” with Beth Ruyak for two shows before she passed away.  Mom was interviewed for the show by Beth after Lauren passed away.  At that time, Beth asked if we would agree to a documentary about Lauren and her cause.  Of course, we agreed!  It was exactly what Lauren would have wanted.  The time wasn’t right to start the project until just over a year ago.

It’s been very difficult to go through the details of Lauren’s initial cancer diagnosis and her struggles throughout her treatments, but those were mixed with heartwarming details of how Lauren touched others and how others touched her.  It also brought to the forefront the depth of our loss, missing Lauren every…

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In a Smile of Peculiar Meaning: Edgar Allan Poe’s “Berenice”

Poe, great illustrations and the blog “The Year of Halloween.” You can’t go wrong with that great combination. Check it out and enjoy the fun.

If you aren’t following “The Year of Halloween” do yourself a favor and FOLLOW. You’ll be glad you did.

The Year of Halloween

Detail, 1916 Illustration by Harry Clarke for Edgar Allan Poe’s Berenice, from Tales of Mystery and Imagination

In 1835, the Southern Literary Messenger published a short story so shocking, so graphic and ghastly, that outraged letters poured into the office of editor Thomas W. White. Written by a relatively unknown Edgar Allan Poe, the story, Berenice, tells of Egaeus, a young man of family and wealth who is stricken by an obsessive disorder known to 19th-century psychiatry as monomania, a pathological fixation on some specific item. In the case of Egaeus, this fixation centered horribly on the gleaming teeth of his cousin and fiancée, Berenice, a porcelain rictus staring out from an ill and wasted visage.

“God of heaven! — is it possible? Is it my brain that reels — or was it indeed the finger of the enshrouded dead that stirred in the white cerement that bound it? Frozen with unutterable awe I slowly raised my eyes to the countenance of the corpse. There had been a band around the jaws, but…

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