my most successful art history paper

by the end of my senior year at wellesley college, my poor grades had improved, not that they were anything spectacular. i'd changed my major to art history, having found that my good visual memory served me well in identifying slides on exams. for research papers, we were required to write only about works of art that we could see firsthand: no pictures in books. this was good training and there were plenty of resources at hand: the museums in nearby boston and cambridge, as well as the collection of the wellesley college museum itself.

in my final semester, i took the advanced course in medieval sculpture. this was taught by the distinguished miss teresa frisch, viennese by birth, with a strong teutonic accent and very good tweed suits and italian shoes (not that i recognized gucci at the time, but i did admire the little snaffle-bit pseudo buckles). miss frisch also served as our class dean for several years. my unexceptional behavior (i was never caught sneaking out of the dorm at night to meet boys, like a certain friend of mine), and the fact that i sat in the back of the classroom and never asked nor answered a question, meant that miss frisch and i had very little contact.

like many another impressionable student, i was attracted to medieval art. it exuded a spirituality missing from the dry protestantism that i'd been brought up on. i decided to write my final paper on a gothic sculpture in the college museum, a typical madonna and child. this was a limestone piece, about three feet high, with the elegantly crowned and dressed madonna holding the child on her left hip. baby jesus was strangely mature and held a small fat songbird, a symbol of the holy spirit. there was a little damage to the madonna's crown and some pieces missing from the folds of her garment--those crude protestants loved to take their mallets and try to destroy such things--but the overall condition was good. 

its label said 'french' but its exact provenance was unknown. the game was to compare it to other, similar figures, and try to determine where and when the sculpture was made. i looked at every detail in every book on medieval sculpture in the library, and every similar statue in collections in the greater boston area. i found enough similarities in style to conclude that this figure must have been carved for a small church in the central loire valley and date to about 1360.

the written paper replete with footnotes and bibliography had to be turned in, but miss frisch asked that students working on objects in the college museum present their findings to her in person. this was scary for me, but i wouldn't be around much longer to be embarassed by my mediocre academic performance. 

the professor and i stood in front of the madonna. i had brought along a stack of library books flagged with illustrations that supported my findings. it didn't take long for me to finish my presentation.

miss frisch smiled  and reached down. out of the jaws of her well-traveled briefcase came my paper, with an 'A' clearly written on the front.

"congratulations, my dear," she said. "this is a fine piece of work."

i was surprised and pleased.

but then she looked closely at me, blue eyes through tortoise shell glasses, and asked, "but who ARE you? why don't we KNOW you?"

this made my absolute lack of academic distinction clear.

she would like a copy of my paper. they were planning a new guidebook to the collection, and my research would be useful to her in writing about such an important piece. i gave her the original. it wasn't easy to make copies in the '60s.

the next week, i graduated.

years later, i was attending the college art association meeting in boston, and a special trip was offered for an evening reception at the new wellesley college museum. a large building had been designed by the distinguished spanish architect rafael moneo. i hadn't been back to the college for thirty years, so i was happy to have this opportunity. along with a flock of other art historians, i had a glass of wine and some brie and wandered around admiring familiar and new works of art and puzzling over why the architect had designed a strange double staircase to allow access from one level to another.

i wanted to have a look at the madonna and child but i couldn't find her anywhere among the triptychs and other examples of medieval art. i asked around and someone finally introduced me to the museum's curator, a slender, pleasant young woman all in black. i said congratulations and made polite comments about how well the collection looked. then i inquired about the sculpture. where was it?

she thought for a moment. "oh yes," she said, pausing. "yes, i know the one you mean. it's somewhere down in basement storage now. i'm afraid it's a fake."

"avarice" from the cathedral of autun in burgundy

happy february birthdays everyone

the pond is high on february 14, 2009

for such a short month, february has so many significant birthdays: darwin, lincoln (born the very same day, i wonder what the astrologers say about that), jm, peter j, ingrid a, and--ahem-- frogbogblog. a very happy birthday to all, and many more for all who can enjoy them.

ellie's here

judy came home last week with a beautiful dog, a perfect black lab. the michigan humane society said she'd been sent here from indiana, as she'd have a better chance of adoption in michigan. she was a stray; about seven years old. judy named her ellie. i think she looks like annie dipped in india ink, but a bit chunkier all around. ellie is perfectly behaved, knows 'sit' and 'stay' and ignores the cats. iris, the more neurotic of the two, has been demanding more attention but ivy just keeps sleeping near the fire with her fluffy tail over her eyes.

ellie is missing a couple of small teeth in the front of her mouth, and our vet says she has cracks in her molars at the back. alas, this is a sign that she was probably chewing on something metal, the bars of a crate or kennel. ellie will see a canine dentist soon.

 she's greeted all our friends warmly waggingly and has only barked once, at a delivery man who flung a box by the door. she loves the snow and going for walks and the exciting smells that are everywhere to be analyzed.

we are very happy to have her.

everything's white: snow, mayo

it's snowing again, lightly, and this is already the most snow we've had covering the ground for the longest time. there's a solid foot of it on the deck. 2009 might be the year i buy snowshoes. the ski trails that i broke around the field day before yesterday are already drifted over. it's time to prune the apple trees before they even begin to think about spring, and the snow is knee-deep around them. no above-freezing temps in sight.

i made the happiest find of recent days today in the market at kerrytown in ann arbor: they sell duke's mayonaise. last fall ingrid very kindly bought two big jars in raleigh and mailed them to me, since you can't carry such a dangerous substance on a plane anymore. i gave one to penny, who is a big fan of mayo in general and did pronounce duke's the best (of course she grew up in Yankeeland, and duke's of richmond, va., was unknown north of the mason-dixon line). penny is profligate with mayo, though she does have the two grandsons to make sandwiches for, so by new year's eve, hers was all gone. i had been hoarding mine, and had perhaps a solid half jar in the refrigerator, so when out power went out for five days at the end of december, it did seem prudent to throw it out along with some excellent black raspberries i had frozen in july. i was very sad. i have no trips to virginia planned until next fall, and i couldn't mention it to ingrid, because she would just cheerfully send more. i don't want to trouble my elderly cousins about it--once when i asked about what albemarle pippin apples look like, they sent up a boxful. 

so imagine my glee when i spotted a display of the bright yellow labels on several jars right here in ann arbor.

an interesting find is a hole in the snow near the pond. a few days ago it was very round, about four inches in diameter. now it's partly covered with new snow. just along the under edge of the snow are a number of small frosty stalagtites. are these being made by vapor from the lungs of a breathing creature hibernating within? i looked at some other openings in the snow, not exactly the same, but couldn't see any such formations around their edges. does anyone know anything about such a possibility? there are no tracks around the hole.

if someone told you that the entire world could be covered with a pure white crystalline substance that fell from the sky and remained for weeks and weeks, would you believe them?

january 20, 2009: celebrating across the country

on january 20, 2009, i awoke in san jose at 8 a.m. local time and realized that it was 11 in d.c., so i leapt out of bed and went downstairs to watch the inauguration ceremonies. soon tamara was up and began constructing an array of small wooden toys and silk tassels that she said she was making for obama. 'obama' is a word she can read or at least easily recognize; it's so phonic and has the same 'a's as tamara. i saw the bungled swearing in ceremony and most of obama's address and of course aretha's amazing made-in-detroit hat. and cheered at the bushes leaving. hooray for that too.

then off to the airport, heading home. i checked in with a handsome black guy who was just beaming and said that someone had a laptop behind the desk so they could catch glimpses of the ceremony. i watched more on the tv monitor in the sports bar in the airport. it seemed like an appropriate time for a bourbon on the rocks before i flew off to minneapolis. there again everyone was gathered around the tvs near the gate, and strangers were chatting happily with each other, commenting on michelle's dress and barack's cool aplomb on the dance floor.

i took a cab from the detroit airport home. the young driver from west africa, and he was happy as could be that barack was a 'real african' as his father was not african-american. we chatted about the various problems in the world. he listens all the time to npr and the bbc and was very well-informed. also very concerned about how difficult it is for him to support a wife and two small children with no insurance.

at home, jm and i watched their appearance at the final ball together, looking a little tired, but very happy. as were we all.

sleeping with stuffed animals

tamara makes herself right at home in the local independent bookshop, recycle books, in campbell, california.

she is generous enough to share her bed with several tigers and an elephant and me. often she starts off in her bed but then wakes up and moves to sleep with her mommy. the tigers and elephants stay to keep me company. which i appreciate. 

given the horribly cold weather in michigan, i hate to mention that it has been in the seventies and sunny every day here.  there's been no rain for weeks and that is a concern. i hear that there is a trend now to spray paint lawns green, especially those in neighborhoods where there are many empty houses due to foreclosures. 

the number of people of all ages who are out walking, jogging, biking, rollerblading, and drinking coffee while basking in the sun or seeking the shade is impressive. no one seems concerned that they're living right on one of several fault lines.

a sign of the times is that the number of kids enrolled in tamara's preschool has dropped as parents lose their jobs. the school will pay $200 cash to anyone who refers a new kid. in spite of reports of retail sales being down, there are plenty of californians in the malls.

today tamara and i went to the san jose children's discovery museum, a large and much-lauded affair. there are some highly entertaining things for kids to do, many of them involving water. i was most amused to watch several portly indian grandmas in beautiful saris intently listening to a young Vietnamese guy who was instructing us all on how to  make mexican corn husk dolls. never again will i just throw the corn husks into the compost.

and now i've promised to play a game of candyland, the dora the explorer edition. 

holidaze

nothing like xmas in california: the family service on xmas eve in a lutheran church was presented as a birthday party for baby jesus and everyone was given a noise-maker as we entered and asked at a couple of points to make as much noise as possible.

leaving the church, a woman with a little girl about tamara's size chatted us all up a bit and then said, "well, it looks like tamara has two very nice mothers." "Thanks, but we're grandmothers," we said.

other highlights included an abbreviated performance of "the nutcracker," which i found a little disappointing. tamara liked it well enough, but my standards were formed back in the '70s in detroit, when rebecca rossen started her dance career. First she was a mouse in the nutcracker, and moved on to performing as a child (the san jose ballet had adult dancers as the children, a big mistake) and look at her now: a professor of performance at the university of texas. 

we also had a visit with marilyn symmes and her mother jean, meeting them at stanford, where marilyn was an undergraduate and jm a grad student. stanford's lauded campus is so large and so lavish and so heavily monumental in a sort of missionary romanesque mode that it is almost oppressive. jean symmes has written and published two novels, a one act play, and is working on a historical novel set in england in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. needless to say, i'm impressed. and, perhaps, inspired.

tamara was so excited about the gifts santa had left in her stocking that she danced around in circles. there were plenty of presents and a turkey and champagne and some wonderful sweets made by aekyong's friend tina, and several trips sponsored by jm to the gelato emporium in downtown campbell. a visit to the apple store was disappointing; they can't sell the iphone there.

i don't understand why this is all underlined and can't seem to get rid of it. sorry, folks.