The TD Thor Wealth Management Juried Show opened today at Quest Art Gallery in Midland, Ontario. Quest says they had more than 300 submissions from across the country, and I'm pleased to say one of my conté drawings (Hogg Valley Rd. East of Old Fort Rd., Tiny Twp, 2018) made the final 32. You can... Continue Reading →
“Water/L’Eau” exhibition
Two of my drawings, "Hunt Club" and "Gin Rock I. to Brébeuf I. " are part of the "Water /L'Eau" exhibition at Quest Art School and Gallery in Midland, Ontario, which opens June 15. I plan to be there for the opening, 2-4 pm, if you want to say hi. Also: I take terrible photos... Continue Reading →
What’s in a name? Douglas, Deborah, and Karen
Surfing the Fluorish database tells us something that shouldn’t surprise us: people have long been hugely influenced in how they name their kids by celebrities. And my wife and I are no different, in how we were named.
Columbus, Indians, and the Guanches
Never mind notions of spreading Christianity to the benighted of the world, or pursuing humanity’s insatiable love of adventure: money, then as now, sought fresh opportunity, and where opportunities were not at hand, they needed to be created. Columbus sailed out of an Old World that was at that moment focused on a fresh round of subjugation, in the Canaries, and he exported its sensibilities to the New World that he did find.
Should it stay, or should it go?
No matter what you write, if you’ve done your research thoroughly, your first draft is probably going to be too long. If you’ve never written a book, the thought of having at least 80,000 words to fill might seem daunting rather than a restriction. For people who have asked me to help them write a... Continue Reading →
Microbiography: Turn over all stones
In my blog post on book breaking (and the version published by Slate), I wrote of two items that ought to belong in an academic historian’s tool kit: narrative and microbiography. Narrative requires a blog post of its own (but no, I did not mean writing fancy sentences and dumbing down serious work for the... Continue Reading →