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U.S. Camera 1937
My great-grandmother had a closet full of cameras. Examining them was a walk through time, she was born in 1898, and the closet was a...


Time is Elastic
“Time is elastic” David Hockney once said, and coming from him I am inclined to believe it. I have been looking at images online of the...


Prairie meets Pueblo
Noon, William Penhallow Henderson, 1920 It’s spring in the mountains, but I wasn’t prepared for giant snowflakes and a snowstorm that...


The Art of Watercolor
Edwin Lutyens, Design for a house on the Hudson River, New York A colleague recently noted that an architectural professor had once told...


Remember the Alamo
There is nothing more central to the identity of San Antonio, or Texas for that matter, than the Alamo. It’s not just a building, it’s...


Feuds & Friends
William Haines & Joan Crawford The new FX show “Feud” is a wonderful exploration of the legendary rivalry between Joan Crawford and Bette...


Imperial Eggs
Hen Egg commissioned by Alexander III for his wife the Empress Marie Fedorovna Even the most humble egg holds a secret. Golden center...


Our Favorite Gardens
In Texas at least, spring is here. Flowers dot paths and fields, bursts of color that signal spring. The days are longer and full of...


A Large Book of Little Things
Louse from Micrographia I recently began reading a book by Lisa Jardine called “The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, The Man Who Measured...


Parting Storm
Winslow Homer, The Winter Coast, 1890 In the gathering morning I was eager to get out of our house, the blizzard had passed in the...


Prisons of Ash and Ink
Detail from Karl Brullov, The Last Day of Pompeii, 1830-1833 Working on last weeks blog, I was reminded of my trip long ago to the city...


Imagined Architecture
Ledoux: Das Theater von Besançon in einer Pupill Art and design style preferences cycle like the seasons—in architecture modernism was...


Cutting a Colorful Figure
“La carta de amor” The life of Fernando Ramos was a story of love; a love of home, of his native country, of art, of dance- and, of...


3 Houses in Havana
Portrait of María Luisa Gómez-Mena, by Mario Carreño Everyone has a dream of Cuba–the images of art, architecture, and...


Five Days in Cuba
Ernest Hemingway famously wrote, “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of...


The Compass Rose
It is hard to imagine a more elusive mental exersise than attempting to understand the wind. I was walking by a co-workers desk who was...


A Prince of a Painter
Winter Scene, Sandringham, Norfolk, 1987 Growing up in the Royal household in England isn’t an easy matter. Saying one’s life can be a...


Noble Pursuits
A storm breaking above a bridge in the South of France, Churchill Noble Pursuits As the Netflix series The Crown brings the British...


Hat’s off to you, Mr. Bergen…
A mysterious box was left at my house this week. My father had told me he had something for me that had belonged to my great-grandmother,...


Houses & Rabbits–Beatrix Potter’s world through her art
Beatrix Potter, sketch of a wooded landscape viewed from Gwaynynog, Denbigh, 1909 Beatrix Potter is best known for her children’s stories...
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