Whimsy -- "a fanciful or fantastic device, object, or creation especially in writing or art" (Merriam-Webster). I've been thinking a lot...

Cut Glass Decanter, Hernando, Florida, 2020 "What artists say about their own work is compelling because it tells us something about what...

A Single Panel of the Berlin Wall, Newseum, Washington D.C., July 2009 I've been going through old pictures of my time in Germany, just...

The Quaker Meeting, a painting by Egbert van Heemskerck the elder (British artist 1634-35 to 1704) Let's talk about those first hundred...

"The public, as whole, finds reassurance in longevity, and, after the necessary interlude of reaction, is disposed to recognise extreme...

My thanks, Gwendalyn, for the terrific review of The Rose and the Whip today on your instagram site at https://www.instagram.com/gwendaly...

Chelsie reviewed The Rose and the Whip on her site Reading is My Remedy at https://readingismyremedy.wordpress.com/ yesterday. She is...

Did you see my interview with Amy yesterday in Passages to the Past at http://www.passagestothepast.com/#. If not, check it out. For my...

Thanks to Amy for the great review today in Passages to the Past at http://www.passagestothepast.com/#. Amy is also the wonderful lady...

Thanks to Patty for today’s awesome review of The Rose and the Whip at https://bookscookslooks.com/. In her honor, I’m sharing a recipe...

I've read two things in the last two days, from two different points of view, saying the same thing. Art is about feeling. Francis Bacon,...

From under the tutelage of a past fading perhaps, but never lost From out of a mirror we step On wobbling feet, walk ahead Seeing...

In my second novel, one of the themes I'm working with is seeing the past for what it is. Not truth, as truth exists only as long as the...

In a certain biography of an admired artist, one of the chapters begins with "No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he...

House of Seven Gables, Salem, Massachusetts, October 2004 I found Lidia Wardell through her brother-in-law, Samuel Wardwell, the younger...

I've been thinking about legacies as the central theme of my next novel. The legacy as a physical representation of a family heritage,...

We can find a spot of color in an otherwise bleak world; we can imagine a better day, near or far, when a spark can light up a picture;...

In the cold and the snow of December 1662, three women were tied to the back of a horse cart, and whipped for the crime of being Quaker....

I recently started reading The Lives of Lucien Freud by William Feaver (Alfred A. Knopf, 2019). I know his name, as an artist, and I'm...

On Tuesday, May 5, 1663, Lidia Wardell was tried, convicted and whipped at the White Horse Tavern in Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay Colony....