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Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Masterpiece Home Office: How to spiff up your pandemic pad with art from Mia
With work-from-home (still) in full swing, are you finding your quarantine quarters a little lacking? Do you dread logging into the morning meeting, coveting your colleagues’ digs while you slump at your desk seemingly made of Legos and leftover Ikea hardware? Yes, the ideal home office is the new status symbol, and Mia is here to help with Zoom-ready rooms straight from the galleries. Who wouldn’t want to brainstorm in the Studio of Gratifying Discourse? Or file those TPS reports from the sunny table in Pierre Bonnard’s Dining Room in the Country? more »
In the We Couldn't Resist Category: Just Icing on the Cake, Part One, by Roberta McReynolds
Roberta McReynolds writes: Imagine a ‘toy store’ dedicated to the decadent, culinary urges of pastry chefs (both professional and amateur) and the scene is set for a dieter’s nightmare. This store exists a mere four miles from my front door, and worse yet, within walking distance from my husband’s favorite hobby shop. The aisles are stocked with innovative gadgets for every conceivable special event and season, with a rich emphasis on wedding supplies. Cake pans, cookie cutters, and candy molds are strategically situated to catch and hold the attention of those who dare enter. I suspect that the sugar-laden atmosphere is delivered directly through the air-conditioning system to reduce any natural resistance, causing a hypnotic-like trance. more »
“Housewife” to “Hussy”; A Revisit To Grammarphobia: From Domestic to Disreputable
The word “housewife” was spelled “husewif” when it showed up in Sawles Warde, an early Middle English homily written around 1200: “Inwið beoð his hinen in se moni mislich þonc to cwemen wel þe husewif aȝein godes wille” (“Indoors, both his servants have a great many miserable thoughts about how to please the housewife against God’s will”). The OED says “housewife” originally meant pretty much what it does today: “A (typically married) woman whose main occupation is managing the general running of a household, such as caring for her family, performing domestic tasks, etc.” However, the dictionary has this interesting note: “There is some evidence that in Middle English the word housewife in the general sense ‘housekeeper’ could be applied to both men and women.” Oxford provides an example of “hussy” used this way in Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela (1740): “So I … dropt purposely my Hussy.” more »
The Autobiography of a Garden at The Huntington, a Joy for Viewers and Gardeners
One life-affirming pleasure awaiting visitors will be found in The Huntington Art Gallery’s Works on Paper Room. There, displayed against walls of saturated blue, is a resonant, even elegiac, visual narrative. The story that it tells of life and renewal is not on paper, but on 12 uniquely bordered, luminous, ceramic plates revealing in keenly observed detail “The Autobiography of a Garden,” a month-to-month evolution of a real-life garden in Providence, Rhode Island. The exhibition, on view through July 5, 2021, is the work of American painter and printmaker Andrew Raftery and is the product of his inventive, modern-day approach to the transfer of print images onto ceramic, a process dating back to the mid-18th century. Also on view at RISD is Beth Katelman's exhibit. And don't forget the Huntington's shop! more »