You all remember how popular our "creative display room" was at our latest reunions. We thought why not celebrate it all year long. We're starting off with a few items just to get it started and invite all of you talented women to submit your work. Just contact Gay or Wink and we'll get it up on our new page ASAP.
Recognize this cute little girl?
Why it's Betty Krasne
A Dangerous Thing - A Memoir of Learning and Teaching.
Education for women is exterior decoration. For generations, that was the family message. Good taste is what matters in a woman. These were the lessons Betty Krasne learned at home. Then her family sent her to a Progressive school, setting off a life-long battle about what a woman could make of her life. A Dangerous Thing tells the story of that struggle.
A Dangerous Thing by Betty Krasne $18.99
Paperback, 330 pages with 33 black-and-white photographs
ISBN 10: 1-4196-3930-7
Palette knife paintings of my deck flowers
Oil on canvas
Paintings by Gay Hartman
Just in case you think all Gay does is work on our web site here are a few selections of her absolutely beautiful oil paintings. Our talented artist is leading off the art section with these beauties...just a small selection of her recent work.
To introduce our crafts section we're displaying two pillows by Wink. The first...the MHC logo, was first seen as a picture by Joan Willenbrok Leonard and Wink made hers as a pillow. The second...is a Montage of the animal paper that was the signature paper for The Second Story Bookshop which Gay painted on a needlepoint canvas for Wink.
Counted Cross Stitch Pillow
Needlepoint Pillow
Polly Laszlo Brody wrote in our guest book on our Home Page about her latest poems and essays and actually was the inspiration for starting this page.
Check it out and then go to her publisher's web site to see descriptions of her latest work.
While the newspaper op-ed page, the Sunday morning political talk shows on television, and the evening cable-news television lineup have an obvious and growing influence in American politics and political communication, social scientists and media scholars tend to be broadly critical of the rise of organized punditry during the 20th century without ever providing a close empirical analysis. What is the nature of the contemporary space of opinion? How has it developed historically? What kinds of people speak in this space? What styles of writing and speech do they use? What types of authority and expertise do they draw on? And what impact do their commentaries have on public debate?
To describe and analyze this complex space of news media, Ronald Jacobs and Eleanor Townsley rely on enormous samples of opinion collected from newspapers and television shows during the first years of the last two Presidential administrations. They also employ biographical data on authors of opinion to connect specific argument styles to specific types of authors, and examine the distribution of authors and argument types across different formats. The result is a close mapping that reveals a massive expansion and differentiation of the opinion space. It tells a complex story of shifting intersections between journalism, politics, the academy, and the new sector of think tanks.
The Space of Opinion
by Eleanor Townsley and Ron Jacobs
Published Oct. 2011
Two Person Art Show
November-December 2011
Two of our classmates, Gay Chaffee Hartman and Barbara Garland Clinkenbeard, held a joint art show at RiverMead in Peterborough, NH where they both live. They have been taking local art classes at Sharon Arts. Below are some photos of the show.
The paintings below are watercolors
by Barbie Clinkenbeard
And, these below are oils by Gay Hartman
Scroll down for more of Gay's paintings
Ellie Graham Claus and her husband Clyde have been avid weavers for many years. Below is a lovely jacket woven by Ellie. Some of you might remember it from the display at our 55th reunion.
Chinese Brush Painting
by Issy Scherer Cunningham
In 1992, my husband and I took a trip on a house boat on Lake Powell for a week----and I became overwhelmed with the beauty and color of the place; and decided that I needed to spend time "nuturing the artist within"---(As long as I can remember, I had always doodled, but never anything serious). So I began to register for classes at the Summit Art Center and tried various types of art----portrait, live drawing, watercolor, etc. But, it was a struggle.
Then, I saw an outdoor exhibit where a Chinese brush painter had a booth, and I realized that this painter also taught a class that I could take at the Art Center. That's how I met Shirley Pu Wills, my teacher! From the first day in her class, I knew I was in the right place! I just loved the sketchiness, abstractness, graphic quality, color and rhythmic vitality of Chinese Brush painting. Ch'i Yuen....harmony with the spirit. I was hooked! For the next ten years, I took every class she offered. Then, one day Shirley brought one of her students from another place where she taught, who turned out to be none other than Carol Lochhead!!!!!
So, for many years, Carol and I became Shirley's devoted students and did some art shows together; and with Shirley formed The Sumie Society of New Jersey. Shirley took us into New York, to buy books on Chinese painting, art supplies, and visit the Chinese Cultural Center. She was quite the character and brought live fish into the classroom for us to paint! She encouraged us to sell our art work. She was a go-getter and a beautiful artist.
I would say that Chinese brush painting is "in my blood" and that finding a teacher to bring forth that inner desire was one of the great joys of my life.
Wendy Loye Hall has been painting for many years and recently let us know about her work. See some of her paintings here and if you go to the website of her art group www.sargentartgroup/WendyHall.html you can click on ARTISTS at the top and scroll down to the still life with her name there. You will see her artist's statement and all of the artwork presently on the site. She has been painting for many years and belongs to the Sargent Art Group named after McNeil Sargent, a local college teacher. She keeps adding to her site and all the paintings are for sale.
Weaving
By Ellie Graham Claus
Watercolors
by Wendy Loye Hall
We have our first multitasking
creative classmate!
Betty Krasne not only writes books but
she paints in pastels.
Two of her works from her exhibition of
"Northwest Seasons"
PASTELS
by Betty Krasne
Miriam’s Words: The Personal Price of a Public Life
by Mary Lou Judd Carpenter
Mrs. Walter Judd, Mary Lou’s mother, emerges in a revealing new book of selections from her letters and her private writings from 1931 to 1991 with introductions and footnotes by Mary Lou. Mrs. Judd was in the class of 1925.
For more information
email Mary Lou at
maryloucarp@gmail.com
Greetings to my remarkable classmates of 1955. I hope all of you are prepared to charge on with our new longevity challenges. Alas! I have written a book. It is a brief, allegorical examination of our humanity as one walks through a forest, noticing how various trees grow and develop. With close attention we can recognize elements that are similar to aspects of ourselves from which we can grow. It is only 33 pages of single spaced text with appropriate pictures scattered throughout to focus on the concept being presented.
I have had positive reports of its significance to those who have read it and who felt helped by it. I'm not going to publish it; such an effort is too great these days. I do want to make this available to my classmates. If you think you might be interested, just send me your name and email address.
Set in New England during the 1980s, Krasne’s stories follow well-meaning people whose lives suddenly go in unexpected directions when desire and memory take over. Friends, wives and husbands, children and parents struggle to create a small, safe place of comfort and goodness, but when their bodies lead them astray, the results are touching, surprising, and humorous. Minor characters readers meet in early stories reappear front and center in later stories. As time, place, and events overlap, readers get to know a community, its varied inhabitants, and the lengths to which their wayward passions drive them.
Three new repeat performers!
Body Parts
Stories by Betty Krasne
Lore
by Polly Laszlo Brody
The house on the front cover is my childhood home,
in which I lived until I married.
Lore is a collection of vignette chapters that tell of
family adventures, misadventures, and events,
both before my birth and after.
These tales are those I shared with my grandchildren who begged: "Tell us more lore, Grandma!"
and...
Available at Amazon and at House of Books in Kent, CT. ISBN 1499104316 $16.95
Warning…Do not read this book if you are hungry! Nancy Mohr has managed to write an absolutely delicious book about her exciting experiences on the road for the magazine Countryside and her own down home adventures that keep you enthralled and entertained. Complete with unusual recipes and filled with love and humor.
Available at www.SevynmorPress.com
and Amazon
Wonderful quote from the book submitted by Wink
"All adults are immigrants from the country of childhood"
Three paintings from Connie Spence. See the Scribe Page for more information about her.
Lily of the Nile
Mesa Arch Canyon Lands.
Display tables at our 60th reunion
Dandilion Ballet
Gastronomy, and not just the Eiffel Tower, has always lured some travelers to France. Adrienne Zausner; her husband, Martin Zausner; and their friend Joan M. Harper were among those gastronomes, dining at Michelin three-star restaurants the way safarigoers checked the “Big Five” off their lists. Ms. Zausner went beyond exquisite dinners by befriending chefs, cooking with them and serving their recipes at home. Now, afflicted with primary progressive aphasia, a type of degenerative dementia, Ms. Zausner can no longer prepare lobster in Champagne sauce from L’Auberge de L’Ill or salmon in sorrel sauce from Jean Troisgros. Ms. Harper has assembled a cookbook of recipes, stories about Ms. Zausner’s travels and useful kitchen advice. Ten percent of the proceeds goes to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration: “Cooking With Adrienne: A Story of Friendship and Food” by Joan M. Harper (Harper Publications, $19.99), cookingwithadrienne.com.
Cooking with Adrienne
A STORY OF FRIENDSHIP AND FOOD
Can this be our classmate
Adrienne Becker?
Yes, it is!
A DOUBLE WHAMMY!
How's this for talent?
Not only did Ellen Dobbie Full paint these two beautiful portraits of herself and her husband Bob, but then she put them on needlepoint too.
Can you top this?
I married my husband, Bob, in August of 1955. We had 5 children and 10 grandchildren. We lived in the same house for 50 years but then sadly I had to put Bob into a nursing home because he had developed Alzheimer's. I didn't like the idea of living alone so I sold our house plus the mobile home we owned in Fort Myers, Florida, and entered a continuing care community. I've been here almost 11 years now. Bob passed away 3 years ago. I have developed pulmonary thrombosis, am on oxygen 24/7 and now live in the assisted living section of the facility. My address has changed somewhat: rather than H-210 (my apartment number), it now reads OBTE #8.
As a sideline: not sure you knew I had written 2 books. Our second child, Robbie, was born with multiple handicaps and my first book, Living with Robbie, is about him and how his life affected us and also his siblings. My second book, Truly Blessed, continues his story, but also deals with Bob's problems with his Alzheimer's.
Nancy Drum Price
Another Hidden Author
Polly writes:
"Yes, have just published another book, a memoir titled: Yesterday's River.
My grandsons asked for more, so I started last autumn and finished this May.
A collection of tales about my own life, starting at childhood, progressing through college, marriage, and ensuing trips taken with our growing children, and finally recounting wilderness adventures I experienced as a single woman in my 50s--70s.
This is for sure my last book...it's a limited edition and I'm giving the copies as gifts.
My beloved Kie again did the production. The cover photo was taken in Tanzania, back in 2011, when I returned to the very spot on the bank of the Great Ruaha River where my then-husband and I had camped in 1973.
Save for significant hip and low-back arthritis I am well enough. But no more trips!!
Hope you are thriving.
Best wishes, Polly."
Another book from Polly Laszlo Brody
Another beginning,
a romantic story about an
unpublished book.
Leoardo da Vinci dreamed of creating a monumental bronze horse that would glow in the Milanese sunlight, guaranteeing his place in history as a sculptor, for none larger had ever
