victoria thorne

holidays with Claude ♥️

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sat, 26 Nov 2022 21:29:00 +0000

golden

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 05:42:00 +0000

.

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 05:30:00 +0000

thankful beyond words: happy valentine's day (a corsage for you)

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 19:42:00 +0000

light

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 04:58:00 +0000

mountain view paris san francisco

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:00 +0000

golden

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 19:10:00 +0000

wandering around Marie's garden

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 19:07:00 +0000

bristle

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 07:19:00 +0000

a brilliant brush shop in Berlin

transported

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 21:24:00 +0000

transport

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 05:13:00 +0000

west

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sat, 31 Jan 2015 04:44:00 +0000

At the Cantor: From the Collection of Leland Stanford, Jr.

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 02:43:00 +0000

The Cantor

meisterhaus kandinsky-klee

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 03:49:00 +0000

Dessau

goethe's puppet theater

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 06:00:00 +0000

Frankfurt

grace

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 06:23:00 +0000

Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent . . .

-thomas merton

mrs. basil e. frankweiler

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 05:08:00 +0000

these come to you, today, courtesy of a sudden flurry of activity in our garage. to say that my art files are a bit mixed-up is -- well, actually, they're not really that mixed-up, but these pen and ink drawings were not where i expected them to be, so it was a joy to come across them. all were done a dozen or so years ago. two of the pieces were created for the gap (i contributed art for several seasons in the '90s, and it was great fun to walk into the store and see it on children's wear and various other items). i also did quite a bit of personalized stationery and invitations, which explains the luggage (for a graduation party) and the houses (christmas card for a family).

probability

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 01:52:00 +0000

Some Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Sat, 24 Jan 2015 02:34:00 +0000

There's a rhythm to posting every day.

I have forgotten it somewhat.

Working on getting back to it.

Can we talk about Sue Hanna for a minute? She was a teacher who changed lives. Taking her poetry class, freshman year, pretty much convinced me that my life would be dedicated to [fill in some blank here] and the only way to achieve that was to be an English Major. (English Majors: are they people who write? Read? Opt out of the studio art degrees they were supposedly going to school for -- or was that just me?)

Back to Ms. Hanna (she was the only professor at our school, in 1977, that insisted on that prefix; ahead of her time, always. But she'd have winced at me saying that -- she hated cliches). She read poetry. Loudly, somewhat. She insisted we read it that way, too. Maybe not loud but like we were invested in it and not just mildly considering it: we needed to feel the words come out of our mouths. We needed to be able to hear the poet.

Who cares if anyone in the dorm thinks this is odd? she'd have said. This is the way you read poetry. My roommate told me, some time into that first semester, that I was reciting poetry in my sleep. (She wasn't super-thrilled.) That still embarrasses me a little, but not for the reason you'd expect. I wasn't reading it aloud, in the dorm, as much as Ms. Hanna insisted, and I supposed then that my conscience got the best of me and poked through even the shroud of sleep. And it was impossible to remember what I'd been reciting.

Because of Sue Hanna, the Harlem Renaissance and Pauline Kael and Rupert Brooke became, a little or a lot, guiding forces in my life. Because of Sue Hanna, I am on guard always but not often enough for some clanking metaphor or niggling cliche. Most of all, because of Sue Hanna, I will never see words without realizing that they can be employed in a way that could change a life (or many lives, as hers did). So many words, so often thrown around -- and yet, with care, what good they can do if well-employed.

Thanks. Some teachers deserve to be remembered. It bothers me that she might not have known how grateful I was for her teaching. If you still have time, maybe you can go thank someone who changed your life. Thanks, Ms. Hanna. Somewhere, I hope, you hear this. Aloud.

working girl

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Fri, 23 Jan 2015 03:18:00 +0000

resort (a few summer sketches)

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Thu, 22 Jan 2015 06:31:00 +0000

generosity of spirit

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Wed, 21 Jan 2015 04:45:00 +0000

generosity of spirit

after "i love you" -- these,

when together, are,

(i believe) the three best words

time's wingèd chariot and all that

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 01:39:00 +0000

update: the 'make-something-everyday' project continues ... but, as mentioned in the weekend update post, i won't be publishing every little thing each day. sometimes, yes. and there may be an end-of-the-month roundup. we'll see how how it goes. for now:

Let us roll all our strength and all/Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife/Through the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun/Stand still, yet we will make him run-

or something like that.

hum

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 21:09:00 +0000

short flights

noreply@blogger.com (Victoria Thorne) — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 03:36:00 +0000

"The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time.

The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions."

- Samuel Johnson