Castles in the air
I knew a writer who wanted to transition from the technical documents that he wrote to pay his bills to fiction. His vision inspired a whole universe; not one novel…
The lady who gave up
Fresh off the boat that summer; I was a wide-eyed kid in New York for the first time. I gorged myself on galleries and museums. I was as fresh and raw as…
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…
Reader gift
For me, visiting the Utrecht store on 3rd Ave. in Manhattan was like going to Disneyland. An entire store dedicated to art supplies! Utrecht along with Pearl and other independent…
Stiff
Stiff paint, stiff muscles, stiff brain. This describes my afternoon. I finished a painting this morning and celebrated with a piece of pumpkin pie leftover from Thanksgiving. Back in the…
Book Thief
In the summer before third grade, we moved to a small town far from Dayton. The ramshackle house we rented was across the street from the public library. With its…
Robert Doak
I was marveling about how good the sun-thickened oil is that I got from Robert Doak. Like everything I’ve ever purchased from him, the quality is excellent. I’m not out…