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…
Category: Bio
Who needs culture anyway?
One of the biggest shocks of my life and one of my biggest disappointments occurred when I went to France for the first time in 1993. France! home of great artists--David, Delacroix, the angelic Ingres,…
White Christmas
It started snowing Thursday afternoon and didn't stop until Christmas evening. Six-inches of snow with knee-high drifts, as you can see in this photo taken from our dining room on Christmas morning. Every year we…
Working quietly in the corner
In Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, the protagonist studies painting for two years in an atelier school in Paris. At the end of that time, he screws up his courage to ask the master if…
Maulsticks
When my daughter was very young, with a very serious face she asked, "Daddy, why do you hold a big stick in your studio?" To a child, the most question-provoking thing about the studio was…
Fall along the lake
Lake Erie keeps the Fall weather mild in NE Ohio. Halloween is often shirtsleeve weather here. New Jersey, where we lived before moving here, is always cold by this time. I remember freezing as I…