On Saturday, March 2, 2019, other family members and I attended the Friends of Arrow Rock First Saturday Lecture presented by Dr. Joan Stack. Dr. Stack is an art historian who serves as the Curator of Art Collections at the State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Her topic […]
Continue readingTag Archives: art
A Visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
I’ve written before about the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. It is a wonderful museum, but it is nothing compared to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I’ve visited other museums as well (see here and here), but they also are shadows of the Rijksmuseum. About the only museums I’ve spent much […]
Continue readingReflections on Mount Rushmore
My husband and I recently returned from a trip to South Dakota. I’d never been to the state before, and I wanted to see attractions such as Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, and the scenic roads and towns in the Black Hills. My daughter scoffed when I told her we were […]
Continue readingChihuly Garden and Glass Gallery
I’ve done a fair amount of sightseeing in Seattle, but I’d never been to the Chihuly Garden and Glass Gallery until a trip this autumn. The gallery and gardens sit under the Space Needle, but somehow I’d always passed them by. This time, I made a special visit just to […]
Continue readingDa Vinci: Renaissance Man and Inspiration for the 21st Century
I’ve always wanted to be a renaissance woman—to be like the educated class of the Renaissance, free to pursue a variety of interests, not as a dabbler, but as an expert in each area I explored. The only drawback I could see to such a life was the lack of […]
Continue readingCloisters: Transplanting History Across the Seas and Through the Centuries
My son says that when he lived in New York several years ago I told him I wanted to see the Cloisters when I visited him. I don’t remember that conversation, though he has a better memory than I do. In any event, we did not make it to the […]
Continue readingChinese Landscapes – Ancient and Modern – and the Search for Spiritual Order
One of my favorite oases in Kansas City is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I go there when I have a spare hour or two. Last week I went to the Nelson’s special exhibit entitled “Journey through Mountains and Rivers: Chinese Landscapes Ancient and Modern,” and came away with a new […]
Continue readingFred Geary Woodcuts: A Window Into History Feeds Today’s Imagination
I happened upon an exhibit of Fred Geary’s woodcuts at the Kansas City Public Library’s Central Branch earlier this week. It was another example of how writing historical fiction has changed my perspective on the world. (See my earlier post on reading a newspaper article about modern gold panning.) Geary’s woodcuts […]
Continue reading