Katherine Keenum

You don't need me to tell you that tomorrow's election matters. Women's rights and health are on the line. Our suffragist foremothers, who won us the vote, would be out in force!
 
I haven't been able to find a recording of "Votes for Women: International Suffragists' Song" on the internet (which tells you something, doesn't it?), but the link takes you to the sheet music as well as the cover. And a bonus: If you feel jittery about the upcoming results, you can pass some time by building Votes for Women as an online jigsaw puzzle.

Novembre by the American Tonalist painter, Lowell Birge Harrison, has been one of my favorites ever since I discovered it while researching Where the Light Falls—probably because I am fond in general of the gray-and-gold waning of fall color in November. I have to say, though, it's very odd here in the Northeast this year. Highs in the sixties. Warm, not wan. I've begun reading The Sentence by Louise Erdrich for my library book club and was struck by this sentence last night by this: "The act of walking down a beautiful November street, comfortable in only a thin sweater, was an infected sort of pleasure" (p. 50). Climate change, books, life, death, and I haven't even gotten to the lockdown section to see whether the novel becomes a major entry to my Pandemic Art category!

Blog post alert: Rereading the Myriorama chapter in Philip Pullman's Secret Commonwealth sent me searching for a set of traditional cards. I landed on Mryiormama Cards to Print. Learn how to make your own and use them for imaginative stimulation! And for those of you who just want to fool around on line, try a game at at the Laurence Sterne Trust played with Tom Gauld's cards—the skull seems just right for Halloween.

Blog post alert: This image of a woman in a transparent veil in Alfonso X's Book of Games sent me searching for information about sheer fabrics in the Middle Ages. Imagine my delight at finding this very woman and my two earlier two chess-playing queens in a post on Two Spanish 13th century outfits. Eva, the blogger, even recreated the embroidery on the sleeves. Check out her very informative website, Eva's historical costuming blog.

An article, Hilma af Klint: Swedish mystic hailed as the true pioneer of abstract art, in the Guardian calls attention to a new biography of and film about a woman artist who flourished in the early 20th C. She still astonishes today. At first sight, her work reminded me of Agnes Pelton's—and it came forty years earlier. If she is as new to you as she is to me, I recommend Hilma af Klint's Visionary Paintings, a review of the 2018 show at the Guggenheim by the late Peter Schjeldahl. As a quick introduction to her work, it is informative, well illustrated, and as always with Schjeldahl lively and engaging. Image via Open Culture post on the publication of the af Klint catalogue raisonné.

Blog post alert: The 1908 Project is a portal into the high fashion of Mattie Palmer's year. And anyone interested in vintage clothing, sewing patterns, and instructional videos should check it out the entire Wearing History website. See also Gail Brinson Ivey's 1908 Ladies Clothing Fashions–Part 1 and 1908 Ladies Clothing Fashions– Part 2 as well.
Image via Period Paper.

Writing a poem in response to a painting is a well-known exercise. Theodora Goss's To Be a Woman is a splendid example. What I like best about it is that the poem works with or without the picture; and after you read it, the picture retains unplumbed depths. Personally, I am touched by the delicate strength of the embroidery on the woman's shirt, best seen in the highest resolution of the image via Wikipedia Commons. What about you?

Female education bonus: Not only mothers and schoolmistresses teaching girls to read, but from medieval Spain, two queens teaching chess to girls! The illustration is from The Book of Games (chess, dice, and backgammon) commissioned by King Alfonso X of Toledo. It's a wonderful source for images of 13th C Iberian ethnicities, clothes, architectural detail, and more. And the digitization at the RBME Digital website is excellent.

Blog post alert: Picturing Children's Food in Early Modern Europe at the Folger Shakespeare Library's website contains an image pertinent to my earlier query about illustrations of girl's education. This is late Renaissance, not late medieval, but still full of details about clothes and activities for historical-fiction writers to mine. Image via the Metropolitan Museum.

On the strength of a Calmgrove review, I ordered a copy of The Imagination Chamber: Cosmic Rays from Lyra's Universe by Philip Pullman. For inventors of imaginary worlds, the idea of a cloud chamber is an apt metaphor. You never know when a character, setting, or action will pop up—nothing full blown, just glimpses, like a particle trail. Collecting these haphazardly in notebooks is essential. Rereading the notebooks sparks new connections. I'm enjoying Pullman's stray phrases and visualizations of Lyra's world one a day. Even better is the reaffirmation that jotting down my own ideas matters (pun not intended by retained).