My family and I went to New Orleans for a family vacation Jan 2-9. It was fun. Not a place on my "go back to" list, but a great family adventure which was the whole point.

For my artistic curiosities in New Orleans, I looked up and visited a few pottery joints and the Ogden Museum of Southern Artists and the Scuplture Garden at the New Orleans Museum of Art. I went into quite a few galleries and an artists co-op in the French Quarter. I'm sorry, I don;t usually like to be unkind about other art makers but my daughter Jo and I about gagged at how much truly bad art there was for sale on the street however, I did manage to find one talented young man and bought a print of his charcoal drawing of a parade on Royal Street.

We walked 30 miles around the city that week so we were pretty tuckered out when we got back to Pa. so we came home, layed on the couch and watched almost every previous episode of Downton Abbey with my daughter each night, drank a lot of wine and lamented that she would be going back to school within days.


My awesome niece Suzi came to visit and she and I and my daughter visited Isaiah's Magic Garden in Philadelphia. (ok, they call it Philadelphia's Magic Garden now because it became a non profit to save it from the bulldozer, but the city didn't build it, Isaiah did, so I'm still going to call it that!)



I bought clay while I was in Philly and a new glaze at The Ceramic Shop that I have never used  called "Magic Glaze" (how fitting) and that allegedly produces different results with almost every firing. Hmmm, can't wait to use it. I bought a gallon. $49 bucks! Hope I like it!


We spent the rest of the weekend binge watching more Downton Abbey with my daughter and niece drinking a lot of wine (did I say that already?) in our pajamas and  only surfaced into the world to take my neice to the movies for her first Dine-in Theatre experience, where we ate food and drank martini's and wine.

You may be wondering, since this is a blog about my artistic life, where does the art part come into this post?  Well, sadly for me, my daughter went back to school, my niece went back home to North Carolina, my husband went back to work after his long vacation and I have been at home again alone just  starting to rekindle the momentum of producing art and letting ya all know what I'm up to through the cyber world.

Now that all is quiet and I have returned into the studio, I have:

 *begun work on a new painting for that show in March which  I mentioned in my previous post.

Cat at Cafe du Monde in progress

 *spent a couple of afternoons making some cute little miniature houses which I intend to add to my wholesale catalog

These are not fired yet. I will post next week with the WIP

*Designed and printed postcards for upcoming March show

*Designed and printed new business cards.

* I've also begun a new relationship with Mala Galleria in Kennett Square where my pottery will be available for sale.

 
We got snowed in for a day during the great northeast Snowmageddon, so I did some baking and cleaning and purging of some closets and rooms.

My studio after round one still looking like springtime

My burnt pumpkin cheesecake. It still tasted good.

So there. See. It was action packed and I did do a lot despite the languishing around in pajamas watching television. (Sometimes a body just has to take time to rejuvenate) !

Today, as I work around the studio on my current painting , I am going to start another one as soon as I figure out what it will be. 

Next week, I will post some works in progress in painting or clay or both. Gotta keep it going!

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 The National Council of Teachers of English recently named Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans by Don Brown (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015) the winner of its prestigious Orbis Pictus Award.

The NCTE Orbis Pictus Award  was established in 1989 for promoting and recognizing excellence in the writing of nonfiction for children. The name Orbis Pictus, commemorates the work of Johannes Amos Comenius, Orbis Pictus—The World in Pictures (1657), considered to be the first book actually planned for children. (from the NCTE website)

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans is a spare, but powerful graphic novel account of the tragedy that befell the City of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.  Don Brown researches and illustrates Drowned City in his usual fashion.  It has extensive Source Notes and a corresponding Bibliography.  Every direct quote is sourced.  The illustrations are serious and in muted colors to accurately convey the gravity of the events; but they are sufficiently vague to spare the individual horror experienced by victims, survivors, and rescuers.  As he has done with other topics, Don Brown creates a focused, accurate, and powerful story - suitable for visual learners and for readers in a wide age range.


Other Hurricane Katrina books reviewed on this site:

• Saint Louis Armstrong Beach 
• A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge

Also by Don Brown and reviewed by Shelf-employed:

• America is Under Attack: September 11, 2001: The Day the Towers Fell
• The Great American Dust Bowl 
• All Stations! Distress!: April 15, 1912: The Day the Titanic Sank 
• Let it Begin Here!: April 19, 1775: The Day the American Revolution Began

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Title: A Penguin Named Patience, A Hurricane Katrina Rescue Story Written by: Suzanne Lewis Illustrated by: Lisa Anchin Published by: Sleeping Bear Press, 2015 Themes/Topics: Hurricane Katrina, penguins, rescuing, patience Suitable for ages: 3-7 Opening: Patience knew something was terribly wrong. It was dark and steamy … Continue reading →

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The International Studies Association Annual Convention will be held in New Orleans this week. The conference will be focusing on Global International Relations and Regional Worlds, A New Agenda for International Studies. If you’re attending, stop by booths 202, 204, and 206 to take advantage of our conference discount. Be sure to check out some of the panels and lectures our authors will be giving.

The post International Studies Association Convention 2015: a conference and city guide appeared first on OUPblog.

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Just a quick reminder that I am blogging reviews from the 2015 Diversity Reading Challenge. Today’s picture book falls into category #2. I am sure to post more in this category as the year progresses. Title: The King Cake Baby Written … Continue reading →

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Month 4 of My Broken Leg

 

Julie Nail (photo by Lerina Winters)

The Alter G Anti-Gravity Treadmill

Clicking my heels for a speedier recovery

There's No Place Like Home

In front of Molly's

Catching Throws from the Carriage Riders

Glittering Shoes is Fun

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The calm after the storm

What used to be the kitchen. Walls, floors and ceiling flooded.

My million dollar leg

Blas Falconer, Melinda Palacio, Michelle Detorie after the Mission Poetry Series reading.

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Reconstruction was a time of great change in the city of New Orleans. The Civil War had just ended, and the South was devastated. Although Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had done much for racial equality, racial tension and conflict was ubiquitous in New Orleans. In June 1870, at the height of Reconstruction, 17-month-old Irish-American Mollie Digby was kidnapped from outside her home. The kidnapping was highly publicized in the media of the day, and residents of New Orleans followed the story with intense fervor, all the way to the sensationalized trial of two Afro-Creole women. In The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era, Michael A. Ross looks at why the story of Mollie Digby was so important, and what it reveals about that point in New Orleans history. Below is an infographic depicting life in New Orleans at the time of Mollie Digby’s kidnap.

 

Download a jpg or PDF of the infographic.

Heading image: 1857 view of Canal Street. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Life in New Orleans during the Reconstruction Era [infographic] appeared first on OUPblog.

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The Reconstruction era was a critical moment in the history of American race relations. Though Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation made great strides towards equality, the aftermath was a not-quited newly integrated society, greatly conflicted and rife with racial tension. At the height of Radical Reconstruction, in June 1870, seventeen-month-old Irish-American Mollie Digby was kidnapped from her home in New Orleans — allegedly by two Afro-Creole women. In The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era, Michael A. Ross offers the first ever full account of this historic event and subsequent investigation that electrified the South. The following images set the scene of New Orleans during this time period of racial amalgamation, social friction, and tremendous unease.

• 

  The Diverse New Orleans Population

  A depiction of the diverse population of New Orleans. (Louisiana Image File, LaRC, Tulane University.)

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  Canal Street

  Canal Street in New Orleans during Reconstruction. (Louisiana Image File, LaRC, Tulane University.)

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  Diversity in the Marketplace

  Citizens of all classes frequented the public markets. (Louisiana Image File, LaRC, Tulane University.)

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  Mardi Gras

  A crowd waiting for a Mardi Gras parade. From Edward King, The Great South: A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, The Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. (Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1875, pg. 42.)

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  Matinee

  Creoles Strolling After a Matinee. (Louisiana Image File, LaRC, Tulane University.)

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  Policing the Streets

  A Black Police Officer Addressing a Crowd. (Louisiana Image File, LaRC, Tulane University.)

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  An Afro-Creole Nanny with a White Child

  African American nannies escorting white children was a common site in New Orleans. From Edward King, The Great South: A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, The Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland (Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1875, pg. 30.)

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  Voodoo Ceremony

  Depiction of a Voodoo Ceremony. E.W. Kemble, “Voodoo Dance” from Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, November 1885 to 1886 (New York: The Century Co., vol. XXXI, New Series, Vol. IX, p.807.)

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  Satirical Cartoon

  In this satirical cartoon, Reconstruction in Louisiana under President Grant and the Radical Republicans is depicted as a Greek tragedy. (Louisiana Image File, LaRC, Tulane University.)

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  Political Cartoon

  Democratic periodicals regularly printed cartoons mocking the biracial Reconstruction legislatures in the South. This cartoon depicts a debauched Louisiana Legislature run by African Americans and poor “scalawag” southern whites. (Louisiana Image File, LaRC, Tulane University.)

Featured image: The City of New Orleans, Louisiana, Harper’s Weekly, May 1862. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The post Setting the scene of New Orleans during Reconstruction appeared first on OUPblog.

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Carville: Amid Moss and Resurrection Fern Poems by Gina Ferrara

Gina Ferrara

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Aligator at Avery Island

More Gators

My Bird's Eye View

in the E.R., patched up, ready for a cast

Let the Healing Begin

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Today’s blog post is by Brenda Berg, who loaded her family into an RV and spent over half a year traveling across the country. They called their adventure the Gump Trip, and along the way they distributed 6,000 brand-new books to kids in need at local schools and community programs in the First Book network.

Have you ever sat in the carpool lane and dreamed about your next vacation? Last year, I decided to make it a reality. The plan – before my daughter entered middle school– was to go from music lessons and organized sports to something real.

After months of getting things in order, my kids and I set off on an adventure of a lifetime, traveling to 49 states and two Canadian provinces. (We were also joined by an exchange student from Sweden and my husband joined us about once a month.) In seven-and-a-half months, we traveled over 35,000 miles.

Instead of guitar lessons, we visited the Fender guitar factory and attended live concerts. Instead of indoor climbing classes, we climbed in Alaska and hiked in dozens of national parks. Instead of textbooks, we visited dozens of historic and interesting sites. We definitely got real!

Our commitment to ‘return to real’ extended beyond national parks and factory tours. We were also committed to education and service. In order to reach hundreds of children across the country in a real way, we partnered with First Book to give new, high-quality books to kids in need.

Of the 200 stops we made along the way, the six First Book events – where we worked with local First Book volunteers gave away new books to kids in need – were our favorite experiences, ones that will change our lives forever. We gave away over 6,000 books and met with hundreds of children to talk about traveling in our amazing country. The smiles from those children were better than the sunrise over the Grand Canyon (and that’s a sight that is hard to beat!).

Most of us look for ways to give back in our communities, but I encourage people to consider giving back as they travel. There are isolated and other under-supported communities all over America that will benefit and you will gain a whole different perspective on America at the same time. And, just like your efforts at home, you will get back far more than you will give.

Inspired? Visit First Book on the web to find out how you can volunteer or raise funds to help kids in need get the brand-new books that will change their lives.

The post Across America in an RV With First Book appeared first on First Book Blog.

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Ol’ Bloo’s Boogie-Woogie Band and Blues Ensemble by Jan Huling Henri Sorensen, illustrator Peachtree Publishers 5 Stars . Inside Jacket: Ol’ Bloo Donkey has always dreamed of retiring from the cotton field to become a honky-tonk singer.  But when he overhears the type of retirement plan Farmer Brown has in mind for him—of the permanent …

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Title: The Downfall of a Good Girl Author: Kimberly Lang

May Contain Spoilers

From Amazon:

Review:

I struggled with The Downfall of a Good Girl.  I never felt a connection with Vivi, the story’s protagonist.  She is everything that I am not.  She comes from one of New Orleans’ oldest and wealthiest families, she is a former beauty queen, and now she spends her days running an art gallery and volunteering for various charitable causes.  I am fortunate to run a brush through my hair and pull it back into a ponytail on a daily basis, so a former pageant competitor was difficult from me to relate to.  The plot revolves around the annual Saints and Sinners fund-raising competition, where Vivi is pitted against her childhood nemesis, Connor Mansfield.  Connor and Vivi have been at loggerheads forever, and Vivi is dismayed to discover that Connor, now a successful rock star, will be her competition.  She had never considered that he would be chosen to be the Sinner, and she’s not happy about it at all.  She is extremely competitive, she hates to lose, and for a majority of the book, she is a poor loser just at the thought of losing.  If I met her, I don’t think we would ever be buds.

Connor is reeling from a scandal, and though he proves that the gossip about him is false, he’s still reluctant to put himself in that kind of position again.  When he meets Vivi again, he thinks he’s safe.  He doesn’t even like this woman, and she hates him.  Ever since that flash of temper when they were teens and she publically slapped him, they have been like oil and water.  What Connor doesn’t know is that Vivi once carried a torch for him, but after realizing that he was only using her to get to know her friend better, she can’t find it in herself to forgive him.  Worse, her family and Connor’s are very close, and they have been thrown together since childhood.  Forget that gentle, Southern belle non-sense – she doesn’t want to be nice to him, so she usually isn’t.

While I did enjoy the sparks between them, Vivi’s personality grated on me.  She determines from the beginning that she is going to win the contest by raising the most money, but when Connor is unveiled as the opposition, she gives up before things even begin.  Instead, she charges herself to be a better person than Connor, though even that’s a struggle for her.  Why is he back in town, stealing her thunder?  This was supposed to be her moment to shine, not Connor’s!  This thought process annoyed me, because it is the charity’s moment to shine, and the fact that Vivi was allowed to participate should have been honor enough.  She’s been denied few material things in life, but in terms of personal accomplishments, she is lacking.  She was runner up in the Miss American pageant, and she is steamed to be second best again.

Once Vivi loosens up a little and finally lets go, jumping into an affair with Connor, the pacing of the book picks up significantly.  Their competition becomes fun, and they both focus on doing their best to raise as much money for the charity as they can.  Vivi is having the time of her life, until Connor starts thinking about making New Orleans his home base.  Suddenly, their temporary affair isn’t such a good idea anymore.  She doesn’t want to risk her heart to him, and as long as their arrangement was temporary, there was no threat to her emotions.  Her attitude about trying to stick with Connor permanently pissed me off.  Instead of gambling on that ever elusive HEA, she decides that it’s not worth the effort.  If I had been Connor, I would have been furious.  It’s okay to have a fling, but not okay to try to make things work out permanently?  If Connor had walked away at that point, I wouldn’t have blamed him.

I loved the setting for The Downfall of a Good Girl, and the book would have made my TBR pile just because of that. It’s unfortunate that I didn’t click with the heroine, and that some pacing issues at the beginning of the story prevented my from feeling engaged in Connor and Vivi’s romance.

Grade:  C+

Review copy provided by publisher

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I swear that every time my computer goes on the fritz I feel like I’m walking underwater for days on end while it’s in the shop.  I can’t do email effectively, I can’t update Goodreads, I can’t do anything without feeling like it’s all fake until that little laptop is returned to my knees where it belongs.  It’s a sickness, man.  Not healthy in the least.  But now that it’s back I can’t help but be thrilled!  Woot and woo-hoo and other “woo” related forms of cheering. Now on to the news . . .

• First off, I’m pilfering this next link from the always amusing and informative Jennifer Schultz.  Because I am a member of PEN here in New York I’ve been vaguely aware of the efforts to help New Orleans rebuild post-Katrina (the Children’s/Young Adult Book Authors Committee helped move an elementary school library from St. Joseph’s School in Greenwich Village, New York City, to the Martin Luther King Jr. School in New Orleans and have continued to aid that school ever since).  The New Orleans public libraries themselves haven’t been on my radar as much.  Jennifer filled me in on the matter:

“Yesterday’s Times-Picayune (New Orleans’s newspaper) had an excellent article about the rebirth of the New Orleans Public Library system, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Ever since they started to rebuild the libraries, their motto has been “Building Back Better.” The NOPL libraries were okay—they’ve always had strong community programming, but there was a lot of room for improvement—but drastic improvements were never going to be in the city’s finances, until Katrina came and they had no choice but to literally start over with many of their libraries. They didn’t want to just rebuild what they had—they wanted to take this unusual and tragic opportunity to make a strong and community-oriented system for the city. They wanted to make them public transportation-friendly, since many residents rely on it, technologically savvy,  environmentally-friendly—you name it. This is their website: http://nutrias.org/ (The nutria is a pest —they are great at destroying wetlands-and a source of humor in Louisiana-Louisianians can have a dark sense of humor. They had a rather colorful governor  years ago who suggested that folks should hunt and eat the nutrias in order to cut down on their numbers, and they’ve been sort of a joke ever since. Nutria fur is marketed as “guilt free fur,” etc).”

Thank you, Jennifer!  Fantastic info.  I can’t wait for ALA to return and to get to see the city (and it’s libraries!) firsthand.

• There’s a new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book coming out this November.  Kinney says the new book will in
  0 Comments on Fusenews: If Henry James says it’s wrong I don’t wanna be right as of 1/1/1900
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29 days ago, I challenged myself to read only books written by or about people of color. This challenge was partly inspired by Black History Month, and partly due to a realization that since leaving my classroom in Baltimore, I had pretty much stopped looking for books that reflected the faces of "my" students.

I can almost guarantee that I would not have read most of these books without taking on this challenge, and boy-oh-boy would I have been missing out! In an effort to summarize this month of reading, here are a few awards and a few "similar interest groups" for quick reference.

Favorite YA Read of the Month: Tie between Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis and Mexican Whiteboy by Matt de la Pena (these two couldn't be more different, but I'll remember them both for a long, long time)

Favorite MG Read of the Month: The Whole Story of Half a Girl by Veera Hiranandani (love, love, love this book)

Favorite New-to-Me Author: Ashley Hope Perez - I thoroughly enjoyed What Can't Wait and am eagerly awaiting The Knife and the Butterfly. I can't help but feel a TFA bond with Ms. Perez and I'm so thankful that teachers like her exist!

Favorite Blast from the Past: American Girl - Cecile's New Orleans series

Favorite Illustrations: Heart and Soul - The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson (Abigail Halpin is pretty fabulous too, but Kadir Nelson's paintings were just breathtaking)


Favorite Book that Brad Pitt Should Turn into a Movie: Now is the Time for Running by Michael Williams

Novels in Verse:
- Planet Middle School by Nikki Grimes
- The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba by Margarita Engle
- Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

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The American Girl 1853 series: Cecile and Marie Grace by Denise Lewis Patrick and Sarah Masters Buckey, American Girl, 2011

Recap:
Cecile Rey is one of the "gens de couleur libres" or "free people of color" living in New Orleans in 1853. Together, she and her friend, Marie Grace, experience all that the diverse, busy city has to offer: Mardi Gras parades and costume balls, outdoor French markets, helping to fight a yellow fever epidemic, volunteering at a local orphanage, and performing at a city-wide benefit for the orphaned children.


Review:
Happy Mardi Gras, book lovers! In honor of the holiday, today I'm featuring a series set in New Orleans, and the first two books take place during Mardi Gras!


I was first inspired to cover this American Girl series after seeing a feature on author Denise Lewis Patrick on The Brown Bookshelf. I'd never given a thought to the authors behind my beloved American Girl books, and reading the story of how Patrick was asked to author the Cecile series piqued my interest. The Cecile series is unique from that of the other American Girls because she shares her books with a girl named Marie Grace. I read "Meet Marie Grace" and then all of the Cecile books in the series, and it's very clear that the two authors plotted the stories out together. Between the two "Meet ____" books, some lines were actually word-for-word the same. I'm really not sure why they chose to have two main characters this time. If any of you know, please fill me in!


On the surface, the Cecile/Marie Grace series follows the same "formula" as every other in the AG line.  We "Meet" the girls, they go through some "troubles" but eventually save the day, and everyone ends up stronger and wiser. A little didactic, yes... but these characters are brave, self-confident role models for little girls today. I really like the fact that each book includes a chapter of nonfiction in the back, explaining how the events in the story are a reflection of real events from the past.


Cecile's story is notable because, unlike so many black characters in historial fiction - including 10 Comments on American Girl: Cecile's New Orleans Series, last added: 2/21/2012