Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Out of the Shadows: Women Artists

Fern Isabel Coppedge, American, 1883-1951, a Christa Zaat album,  at
http://www.facebook.com/female.artists.inhistory  
 
Margareta Barbara Dietzsch,
German, 1716-1795, a Zaat album.
Women artists have lived in the shadow of male artists from time immemorial, in darkness, out of view.   

“For most of history, Anonymous was a woman,” Virginia Wolff wrote.  And women's art remained anonymous and hidden.  

The same is true of women musicians and composers, scientists, philosophers, educators and social reformers, and pioneer activists in every political movement in the US known to male historians, beginning with the Abolitionist movement in the early 1800s. It was usually women who planted the seeds and led the charge, and men who made the history books. 

Of  course the impediments and obstacles to women's achievement were formidable. They were denied access to an elementary education for centuries, and then denied entry into colleges, academic training, and art and professional schools. Women had to fight for these opportunities every step of the way.  Once admitted, they were initially disallowed from nude studies of the female body. This was true in the United States as elsewhere. The first women doctors had to fight to study the human body, as did women determined to attend art schools. In many ways, the very existence of the work of talented women artists was denied. A Dutch painter, Margareta Haverman,  was expelled from the French Académie Royale in 1793 when paintings she submitted were judged "too skillful to have been done by a woman."  


Berthe Marisot, Young Girl with Greyhound, 1893. Marisot 
is highly regarded in contemporary exhibitions. See 
Washington Post reference, #6  below. 


Christa Zaat, the curator of  "Female Artists of the World," is on a personal mission to change this. She is dedicated  to lifting "the veil of silence on our collective culture by sharing and celebrating female artists of the past....Her  work is...important to reshaping the canon."  

Fortunately, her project is online and accessible at https://www.facebook.com/female.artists.in.history/

Christa works with Carel Ronk. They live in the Netherlands, and they have uncovered the art works of hundreds of Dutch women over time.  But not only Dutch artists. The project is about  all female artists, Christa emphasizes,  "from all disciplines, all eras, and all countries." .  

Since the beginning of the project in 2011, Christa has posted about 7000 artists a year. That's a lot!  Each artist comes with her own "album," and Christa and Carel have now created and posted 2,000 albums.  The art is fantastic and almost overwhelming in its numbers, depth, scope, and diversity.  You wonder how these works could have been hidden, how such talented artists who happened to be women remained invisible for so long.  

Zaat's project compliments and takes me back to one of my favorite museums anywhere in the world: The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), in Washington, DC. Founded in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay, early collectors of women's art, it opened its doors in 1987. That was just a few years after I arrived in the DC area to begin a new chapter in my life, and I remember the opening celebration as if it was yesterday.  Such excitment and awe.  
NMWA , New York and 13th Streets, WDC 


NMWA interior. Stunning salmon-colored
 and white marble, glorious chandeliars, grand staircases. 
Since then the muserum has acquired a collection of more than 5,000 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative art.  Highlights of the collection include works by Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, and Elisabeth Louise Vigee-LeBrun.  The Museum occupies the old Masonic Temple, a beautiful Renaissance Revival building listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.  The salmon-colored marble and broad staircases, the balconies, chandaliers, and exhibit spaces, are stunning and unforgettable. 

The NMWA is a block away from where my office was when I worked in DC with the NEH humanities council. I went to that museum more than any other, in awe of the artists whom I knew nothing about. It was part of my ongoing education about the talents, achievements and contributions of women in America and around the world.  I still have the old catalogues, and treasure them. The art collections, exhibits and education programs are incredible.  The Museum also maintains a 17,500-volume Library and Research Center.  
Lois Mailou Jones, Les Fetiches, 1938, taught at Howard University
 in DC. I had the great pleasure of meeting Lois and learning
 about her fantastic art,  much of it influenced by her happy
 years living with her  husband Pierre in Haiti. 
NMWA  recent catalogue. 

This wonderful Museum deserves more accolades than it's gotten I think, because it has long recognized, presented, and educated about the women who painted, sculpted, drew and dared to express themselves when their voices were silenced. We pay homage to Wilhelmina Holladay, who pioneered in collecting women artists beginning in the 1960s, when few museums, curators, exhibitors, or educators knew anything about them.  The NMWA, like the work of Christa Zaat and Carel Ronk, brings to light important women artists of the past.  The NMWA also promotes women artists working today.  
Take a look and be amazed, and inspired. Go to Christa Zaat's site online.  To see women's art up close and personal, spend a day at the National Museum of Women in the Arts next time you're in the nation's capital.   
Olga Wisinger-Florian, Austrian, 1844-1926, 
Christa Zaat albums.
Beryl Cook, English, 1928-2008 
Sources: 
1)  https://www.facebook.com/female.artists.in.history/

2)  http://nosmokingmedia.com/features/art-herstory-christa-zaat/

3)  https://www.facebook.com/notes/female-artists-in-history/books-about-female-artists-for-children-and-young-adults/2112066835744861/  

4)  https://www.freemansauction.com/artist/fern-isabel-coppedge  Fern Isabel Coppedge (1883-1951), one of my favorites, is just one example of the life and work of an exquisite artist who was part of the Pennsylvania Impressionist Movement in the early 20th century. "She became well known for her work as a landscape impressionist who painted scenes that were blanketed with snow, such as the villages and farms of Bucks County. Her works included Autumn Gold, Bucks County Scene, Lumberville, Lumberville Cottage, Old House, Spring on the Delaware, The Delaware Valley, and The Delaware Reflections."

5) https://nmwa.org/  The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, pioneered in discovering and presenting wqmen artists. It's one of my favorite Museums in DC, and anywhere.

6) https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/you-know-monet-and-manet-this-female-impressionist-deserves-your-attention-too/2018/08/21/5b1913d2-a223-11e8-93e3-24d1703d2a7a_story.html?utm_term=.697a5da13010s  About the revival of Berthe Morisot's glorious art.  

7)  National Museum of Women in the Arts, Wikipedia, for basic information. 
"The museum was founded to reform traditional histories of art. It is dedicated to discovering and making known women artists who have been overlooked or unacknowledged, and assuring the place of women in contemporary art. The museum’s founder, Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, and her husband Wallace F. Holladay began collecting art in the 1960s, just as scholars were beginning to discuss the under-representation of women in museum collections and major art exhibitions. Impressed by a 17th-century Flemish still life painting by Clara Peeters that they saw in Europe, they sought out information on Peeters and found that the definitive art history texts referenced neither her nor any other woman artist. They became committed to collecting artwork by women and eventually to creating a museum and research center."

Friday, August 17, 2018

Lessons Learned through Travel

Me and Elissa at a wonderful pub in Dublin, Ireland.
Good food, drink, and  Irish dancing.
Travel gives us new ways of seeing the world, its countries and cities, its architecture and natural wonders, its cultures and people.  I love to travel, and I love it when I can share different parts of the world and the great USA with my children and grandchildren. I'm always looking up places to visit.

So it happened that I was online looking for some travel sites when I found a great video called "Seven Life Lessons Learned Only Through Travel."   It's by video maker Sarah Snow and features world traveler Jay Shetty (the link's below).  Take a look.   It's a good reminder of the  pleasures and treasures  and lessons of  travel.

With granddaughter Alli in AMS.
What are the seven lessons that Jay Shetty highlights?
1. Travel makes you a better learner. I'd say it's one of the best ways to learn!
2. Travel makes you smarter, more open, more focused, more receptive. That's because it sharpens all your senses.
3. Travel increases your faith in humanity.  That's a big one, seeing the good that exists in the world, learning all people are essentially the same. It's about building bridges, not walls. It's about what we share, our common humanity, not our differences.
4. Travel makes you more creative. It's about getting into another culture, seeing things through new eyes, acquiring "cognitive flexibility." And what's more powerful than seeing the beauty of nature around the planet, Mother Earth in all its splendor!
Grandson Josh and me in San miguel de
Allende, MX
5.  Travel gives you a wider perspective on the world and human nature. When I get upset about what's going on here, I say this to myself.  Look at the broader history, the broader perspective, the long view.
6.  Travel makes you happier, something for which all travelers can vouch. Daily new experiences lift you up, take you to unexpected places.
7.  Travel makes you more patient and more tolerant. You take your time to learn, listen, watch, absorb. There's nothing like being in what I call "travel mode," taking life as it comes.

It's a great list. I'll test it again on my next trip, coming up soon, a trip with friend Linda Furney to the English countryside around Rochester, Kent, Dickens country, and then of course to London. More on that anon.





https://www.facebook.com/JayShettyIW/videos/2097500223897765/

Sunday, August 5, 2018

A Battle of Historic Proportions: A U.S. President vs. the U.S. Government

I wrote this blog in August 2018, only a year and a half since tRUmp took power. My historian's instincts were kicking into high gear. Many of us saw red flags coming from the White House, the Cabinet, Congress.  I couldn't believe the outright lies. I saw dereliction of duty, from the top down. I saw a clear and present danger to our National Security, highlighted in tRUmp's relationship with Putin, from before the 2016 election. Last week, Ari Melber, on his MSNBC news program, alluded to Greek mythology about the dire consequences of "defying the god's." He was putting Trump's indictments in some perspective. I recalled some of my old blogs expressing concern about what was happening to our country. I'm not clairvoyant but I discerned danger and even seditious or treasonous behavior against Rule of Law. I foresaw a Constitutional crisis in the making. Sadly, it's come to pass. Fran 
                                                                    * * * * * 
August 8, 2018
What does it mean when a president of the U.S. has facts and evidence from all our Intelligence agencies about Russia interfering in the 2016 election--early, specific and detailed evidence--and ignores it, disputes, and denies it?

It means he doesn't care about America's national security interests or doing anything about Russia's ongoing cyber warfare. He thinks the attacks on our democracy are just a PR problem, as the Washington Post put it, not an urgent issue that requires immediate attention to protect the American people and the sanctity of our elections.

I am an historian. I study and have taught American history. Essentially, fundamentally, this is a conflict we have never seen before in our history from the beginning to the present. It is an unprecedented battle between a President of the United States vs. the U.S. government.

What kind of battle is this? What kind of president opposes the government he leads? What kind of president believes America's intel agencies are lying to him? What kind of Congress enables, aids and abets a foreign enemy?

This president, after being thoroughly and regularly briefed, knowing the facts, stands there in Helsinki, next to Putin, and denies the truth. He believes Putin over the intelligence he has received from his own government. Trump vs. the U.S. government in plain view. The nature, extent and depth of such sedition are unprecedented. 

I can't imagine the reactions of our national security, military, and intelligence officials.  What could they be thinking? They are in the dark about that private conversation with Putin.  But then, how can they believe whatever the President might tell them? Our Liar in Chief?  The U.S. government, unbelievable as it seems, doesn't know what the U.S. President did.

The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming. We have a U.S. president in opposition to the U.S. government.

We saw it again last week. A few hours after the leaders of US intel agencies gathered in the White House to warn the American people about the ongoing Russian meddling in our upcoming elections, tRump denied it.  He called it a "hoax" at his Nazi-styled rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.  He told the hysterical crowd he "had a great meeting with Putin" and launched into a tyrannical tirade about "fake news." 

Think about it. Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, had just warned the American people about "a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States....It is real. It is continuing." 

And then, incredibly, the president of the US turns around and blatantly ignores it, denies it. He intentionally, purposefully, dismissed everything that was said in all honesty and good faith to the American people. Trump vs. the US government.

It's the same way he treated that meeting at the White House with the earnest New York Times editors, who begged him to stop calling the media "the enemy of the people."  He relished going out in public and totally rewriting the story. He spit in their faces. He relished the hysteria of the raucous crowd, cheered on the attacks on the media in general and CNN's Jim Acosta in particular. He relished ranting and raging against "fake news" and the "witch hunt" he called the Mueller investigation.

Obstruction of justice in plain view. Treason to Rule of Law and his Oath of Office in plain view.  When did it become okay for a President to lie deliberately, daily to the American people?  We've lived with it for almost two years.  It's still shocking beyond measure, the abuse of power, the inciting to violence, the deliberate dividing of America, goals shared with Putin. 

One day, the answers will bring the Trump Titanic down. It's a Constitutional crisis in the making. It will be a massive explosion of treason, criminality, and obstruction the likes of which we have never seen. It's a matter of time.


Some Sources:

Interesting article: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hubris-what-donald-trump-the-real-housewives-and_us_580993b2e4b099c4343193d9

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/08/03/trump-sees-russias-attacks-on-our-democracy-as-a-public-relations-problem/?utm_term=.5302275fcce3

Washington Post, Sunday August 5, 2018, "Trump in a Precarious time in his Presidency":
"The frequency of the president’s mistruths has picked up, as well. The Washington Post Fact Checker found last week that Trump has now made 4,229 false or misleading claims so far in his presidency — an average of nearly 7.6 such claims per day, and an increase of 978 in just two months." 

What a major story: Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit - BBC News

Don't get out the popcorn yet: The Wheels of Justice Grind Slowly

"Delay, Delay, Delay: From pre-trial motions to negotiations over security, the master of legal stalling has many tactics in his arsena...