Commercial canvas
I spend a lot of time preparing canvases--stretching, priming, and grounding. The process works well for me but it's time-consuming. I would gladly buy commercially-prepared canvas but my experience with it has been bad. In…
Month: March 2021
Review: Killing Commendatore
I became familiar with the Japanese author Haruki Murakami during my current fiction-gorging phase. How could I have been unfamiliar with such a gifted author? It's not an excuse but I go through long periods…
Smooth is best
Rereading what I wrote about preparing a canvas, I realized that I didn't emphasize the main goal enough. Yes, it's important to protect the canvas, but the real goal is to make a great surface.…
Whiskey was the cause
Perusing Ancestry.com's records, I came across this Kentucky newspaper article from 1896. During a drunken brawl, a man, Billy Patrick, was stabbed in the head. At the time the article is written, Patrick is expected…
Family mystery
My great-grandfather Ramey had a fierce personality. Even in his 90's, he had no time for nonsense, epically from unruly children such as me. My grandmother ascribed her father's fierceness to his harsh childhood. Orphaned…
Winter might end?
Just when I finally lost all hope, we saw the sun. This winter has been harsh with bitter cold and snowstorms followed quickly by more snowstorms. But Lake Erie has begun to thaw as has…