The Role of Race in Edmonia Lewis's Death of Cleopatra

This post is an updated and expanded form of an essay that I wrote in my college Women in Art class! I am excited to share some expanded and edited versions of my essays here (since I did spend plenty of time working on them, and I'd hate for them to rot away in my hard drive forever!)

Mary Edmonia Lewis, known more commonly as Edmonia Lewis, was the first professional sculptor of African and Native American descent in America. She created Neoclassical sculptures deeply embedded with racial themes and symbols. Lewis's most celebrated work is her Death of Cleopatra (shown below). This sculpture was displayed as a part of the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where Lewis was one of a handful of women showcasing their work. Of these few women, Lewis was the only one who was not white, making her a paramount that paved the way for women artists of color in the art world. The strong, ethnically-aware subject matter of Death of Cleopatra makes its inclusion in the exposition even more profound.

My Word for 2019

I have to tell you something, one of my biggest pet peeves is seeing people make their New Years Resolutions. It's not because I have a problem with people wanting to better themselves; that I actually love. The problem is that a lot of the time there's nothing to back these resolutions up, so something like 80% of resolutions are already abandoned by February. 

I've found a combination of goal-setting strategies that works for me, and this year I've decided to implement a new layer to help me stay big-picture focused: I have chosen a word to define 2019 for myself. As you can see, I have chosen the word "Mindful," and thus I will be more mindful in everything I do this year.

Read more about how I chose my word and what it means to me after the jump!

Image Surfacing: An Example of Lee Krasner's Nonfeminist Art

Source

A constant struggle for women artists throughout history has been the question of their sex: does a woman have the same capacity to create art as men? Does subject matter differ between men and women? At what point is a line drawn where gender is no longer a consideration in the evaluation of an artwork and the full focus lies on the artwork itself? During the Modern Era of Art, there were two groups with very strong opinions: the Separatists, who held very anti-patriarchy/pro-matriarchy views and expressed extreme favoritism for female and feminine subject matter, and the Nonfeminists who simply wanted to be accepted artists without the modifiers of “woman” or “female” in relation to their capability or criticism. Abstract Expressionist painter Lee Krasner belonged to the latter of the two groups.

Georgia O'Keeffe's Spirituality by Introspection

This post is an updated and expanded form of an essay that I wrote in my college Women in Art class! I am excited to share some expanded and edited versions of my essays here (since I did spend plenty of time working on them, and I'd hate for them to rot away in my hard drive forever!)

Georgia O'Keeffe, Source

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.” -Georgia O'Keeffe, Quote 1 

“I hate flowers- I paint them because they're cheaper than models and they don't move.”
-Georgia O'Keeffe, Quote 2 

“I decided that if I paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.”
-Georgia O'Keeffe, Quote 3

Georgia O'Keeffe's art is a classic example of American art of the early 1900s, especially with her usual subject matter of cityscapes and close-up views of flowers. Her style of abstraction has been lauded by artists and critics alike. Despite flowers and landscapes being a large part of her portfolio, O'Keeffe's idea of nature is detached, aesthetic, and almost entirely indifferent.

Odin's Fur Baby Story

Meet Odin!

He's our big ol' wrinkle, a Shar Pei mix (we think with a lab/pittie) and the absolute sweetest dog I've ever seen in my life.

Does Defining Art Make Any Difference?

This post is an updated and expanded form of an essay that I wrote in my college Aesthetics class! I am excited to share some expanded and edited versions of my essays here (since I did spend plenty of time working on them, and I'd hate for them to rot away in my hard drive forever!)

In the history of art, especially more recent history, the question has been raised countless times on what the true definition of art is. Some philosophers believe that anything and everything can be art, while others have more strict guidelines upon which they base their judgment. Many of these more strict interpretations on which art is defined leave out large groups of creations, such as animal art or even readymades such as Duchamp's Fountain. Is it really that important to come up with a universal definition for what we refer to as “art?” Does it matter whether or not there is a universal definition?

Thankful for Crescent Rolls

Hi everyone! I hope you've all had a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by loved ones and good food.

Thanksgiving has always been a weird holiday for me. Especially since the past few years I've become increasingly aware of how things I have grown used to mean different things to different people; the fact that many Native American people treat Thanksgiving as a day of mourning is certainly something to make me stop and think. My feelings for the holiday are conflicted. I know that I am lucky and that great tragedy and pain has led to me being able to have the life I have today. It's not that I feel less thankful, it's that I feel the weight of the path that led us here more. If anything it makes me feel like I appreciate what I have more. It's a hard subject to think about.

The Thing About Anxiety

Hey everyone! Today we have a guest post written by Heidi Scheuermann of Wandering Thespian. As someone who lives with anxiety, I find this to be very insightful and well thought out. Please enjoy!

I’ve lived a pretty great life so far. I had the good fortune of growing up with parents who are still together – a rarity these days. I have a brother and sister who I actually get along with. I’ve traveled quite a bit more than most people I know. I have an amazingly wonderful and supportive group of friends. Since I’ve been able to drive, I’ve always had a car to get myself around in. I attended private school, and then went on to get both an undergraduate and graduate degree. I never really struggled to learn, and I’ve always been able to keep a job. I have it good. Heck, I have it GREAT. But the thing is, I have anxiety.

Military Wife Life

The United States military has been engrained in my life since day one. My father was in the Marine Corps for the first sixteen years of my life, we lived in a town that was home to Parris Island, the east coast's Marine Corps Recruit Depot. Everywhere you looked there were either current military members or veterans within seeing distance. I wouldn't even know how to function in a place where the military lifestyle wasn't constantly present.

The Youngs Are Back In Town

I'm still settling in back home from our week-long vacation in Beaufort. The main event of our Big Homecoming was my brother-in-law's high school graduation. Joe and I sat with his family to watch his youngest sibling walk across the stage. Many tears were shed (mostly by his mom) and we all celebrated with dinner out later that evening.

Sketchy Hotels and Creepy Jazz Crawls

You know how sometimes you'll think about something completely random that happened years ago and then can't stop thinking about it? Time for a story, everyone.

When I was in high school I was painfully awkward and shy, and the times that I wasn't shy the awkward took over and tended to make everything just weird. Like a cluster of weird.

So the choir I was in went on a trip to perform at the Dizzy Gillespie Jazz Festival upstate in a town called Cheraw. Everything was great about performing and listening to the music, seeing the town.

La Première

So, here we are. The first page. The teetering baby step of a new venture.

The beginning of a blog.

I've always found joy and solace in writing. Even in school, I loved essays and short journaling exercises. But with the boom of the internet age, where words can reach across the globe in an instant... it can be a little intimidating.