|
 |
| KITTY ON HER PURRFECT VIEW Ann Telling Photo January 2012 |
 |
| KITTY ON HER PURRFECT VIEW IN NEW SPOT BY WINDOW Ann Telling Photo January 2012 |
 |
| KITTY ON HER COMPUTER CHAIR Ann Telling Photo January 2012 |
 |
| Bedroom, Bar House, Beverley (with figure) Mary Dawson Elwell British Artist |
| Undated bedroom scene, set in a room which looked out onto the York Road. With twin beds, table and chairs and fire place. North Bar Without and Wylies House can be seen through one window. A woman is standing at a dressing table combing her hair. Mary lived at this house following her marriage to Fred Elwell in 1914 and she painted many scenes of its interior. The device of framing a view of a town through a window was typical of the Camden Town group of painters and the woman at a mirror was a theme explored by many of Mary's contemporaries - including Elizabeth Nourse and Ethel Sands. 'Antique look' gilt wood frame. |
| A painter of interiors and landscapes, Mary Dawson Bishop was born in 1874. Following the premature death of her father, the family moved to Manchester where Mary was educated at Ellerslie College. Described as a "fairly exclusive school," the college would undoubtedly have provided instruction in painting and drawing, which were still considered desirable "accomplishments" for young ladies at this time.
Although it remained difficult for women to obtain a rigorous training in fine art, by the closing decades of the nineteenth century--when Mary was embarking on her artistic career--the situation had improved. The Slade School of Fine Art opened in 1871 offering far greater opportunities for women than those presented by the Royal Academy Schools at the time. Self-help manuals remained an option, providing rudimentary instruction in painting and drawing. Alternatively, women could take lessons with a private tutor or travel to Europe in the hope of securing a position in an artist's studio. Both options necessitated private funds and were only available to wives and daughters of the well-to-do. Nevertheless, despite improvements the artistic training available to women remained significantly inferior to that on offer to men. Little is known of Mary's early life or her initial artistic training. As her family was comfortably off, she may well have had a private tutor. Following her marriage to the affluent oil broker George Alfred Holmes in 1896, there were ample funds available for private instruction and foreign travel. The couple settled in Beverley and by 1904 Mary was sufficiently accomplished to exhibit her work at the Royal Academy of Arts. That same year Mary sat for her portrait to Fred Elwell. George Alfred Holmes died in August 1913, leaving Mary a wealthy widow. The following summer, just weeks after the outbreak of the Great War, Mary married Fred Elwell. Although she was undoubtedly influenced by Fred's work and in all probability received instruction from him, Mary maintained her own distinctive style. She is at her best when painting interiors (both inhabited or uninhabited) when her work reflects the comfortable yet confined and restricted lives generally experienced by women of her class at this time. In 1947 Mary suffered the first of a series of debilitating strokes. Having made her final appearance at the Royal Academy in 1949, she died on the 28th August 1952. |
 |
| GERMAN SHEPHERD |
 ONE HUNDRED FAMOUS VIEWS OF EDO (TOKYO) NUMBER NINETY |
 |
| Night View of Saruwaka-machi (Saruwaka-machi yoru no kei) |
| The full moon rises high in the autumn sky, its white perfection dimmed ever so slightly by a wisp of cloud slanting across its face. Its rays bathe the street below with silver light, displaying an array of shadows that seem to have a life apart from the gray and black figures that cast them. These shadows are central to the magical quality of this unusual print. Both for Western viewers accustomed to pictures with shadows and for Edo viewers to whom they were a curiosity, these particular forms have the similar effect of conjuring up a world that is not quite of this world.
The place depicted shares this quality of a world apart, for it is Saruwaka-machi, the segregated theater district of Edo. Throughout most of the Tokugawa period, the officially approved kabuki and puppet theaters were located in downtown Edo, in two separate neighborhoods. Following an 1841 fire that destroyed one of the districts, however, the moralistic bakufu reformer Mizuno Tadakuni decided it was time to abolish the theaters and refused permission to rebuild. Thanks to the persuasive powers of another bakufu official sympathetic to kabuki, however, Mizuno agreed to relocate the theaters to Asakusa, already an established center of pupular pleasure, on a lot just northeast of Asakusa Kannon Temple (plate 99) and south of the Nihon Embankment (plate 100). |
 |
| BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE |
|
What is the origin of the custom of eating ham around Easter?
PASS YOUR MOUSE OVER THE QUESTION MARKS FOR THE ANSWER! |
 |
 |
| GREEN-WINGED TEAL |
  |
 |
 |  THAT I HAVE NOT READ ... BUT WOULD LIKE TO |
 | This book, Faulkner's grave meditation on race, violence and all the fraught legacies of the South, is the first in which he confronted head-on the poisons of racism. Joe Christmas believes himself to be of mixed race. (His parentage is uncertain.) He has escaped from a miserable childhood to the town of Jefferson, Miss., where he unleashes his demons. Lena Grove has come there, too, looking for the father of the child she is carrying while Christmas fulfills his wretched destiny. This book is less daring structurally than The Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying. Though time still folds back on itself, so that events seem to take place in a zone beyond normal chronology, the flashbacks are easier to follow. But the force of Faulkner's genius is in entirely in play. |
 |
 |
 |
| SHIMADAI AINAME |
 |
| B-17 FLYING FORTRESS |
 |
| MICHIGAN |
 |
|
The MICHIGAN STATE FLAG design features three Latin mottos. From top to bottom they are:
1.On red ribbon: E Pluribus Unum, "Out of many, one", a motto of the United States 2.On light blue shield: Tuebor, "I will defend" 3.On white ribbon: Si Quæris Peninsulam Amnam Circumspice, "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you" (the official state motto) On the blue shield the sun rises over a lake and peninsula, a man with raised hand and holding a gun represents peace and the ability to defend his rights. The elk and moose are symbols of Michigan, while the eagle represents the United States. Flag adopted 1911. |
 |
 |
 |
| PINYON JAY Ann Telling Photo |
|
The peach is the state fruit of Georgia. It is also the state fruit and the state flower of two other states.
Can you name the other states?
PASS YOUR MOUSE OVER THE QUESTION MARKS FOR THE ANSWER! |
 |
| HOLLYHOCK Ann Telling Photo 07.20.08 |
