For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of the Olympics, especially the summer Olympics. Oh sure, I love the ice skating in the winter games (doesn’t everybody?). To this day, the single most significant, moving, memorable Olympic moment for me is… Read More
It has been a long year, for all of us, and hope and comfort have been in short supply. Thus, we have each been forced to find various ways to sustain ourselves. My way, as I have often talked about before, is my… Read More
(Photo: “Jack,” a quilted wall hanging, 32”x40”.) My mother was a doll house miniaturist. Knowing how much I have always loved Halloween, she surprised me in 1993 with a fully furnished and decorated haunted house she had made for my birthday. She shipped… Read More
A couple years ago, as I watched my Mother’s world grow smaller and her ability to navigate even the simplest tasks diminish, I mourned the fact that she was shrinking. As she moved into her 90s, the woman who was once my idol and my… Read More
Writer in residence. Artist in residence. Indicating someone with a specific expertise confined, for at least a time, in a specific place, usually with a specific mission to create, to inspire, to share and to learn. It is essentially an academic concept, a… Read More
The artist Christo died on May 31. He was 84. His artistic career was spent wrapping, draping, constructing and hanging materials over bridges, landmarks, building, and even on water. His wife, Jeanne-Claude, collaborated with him on his astonishing, monumental projects until she died… Read More
Halloween is commonly considered a time when the barrier between the physical and the supernatural worlds is especially fluid. The late fall holiday has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when the dead were thought to freely roam the earth. People… Read More
For Christmas last year, when she was 94, my Mother asked for a Barbie doll — not just any one, mind you, but an “Andy Warhol” Barbie® (above). Part of Mattel’s Collector series, this doll is the second (of three) produced in collaboration with the… Read More
Hamilton, the critically successful musical that opened on Broadway in 2015 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2016, is based on the 2004 biography written by historian Ron Chernow. The play traces the rise of Alexander Hamilton, an orphaned immigrant from… Read More
I love deserts — which is a good thing, considering that where I live is rapidly becoming one. The world’s best deserts, the ones that haven’t been defiled and defaced by over-development and tourist debris, are stark, uncluttered, and magical. They speak to… Read More
the narrative thread 