For women to make history, we must tell our stories and listen to each other. We must name names. We must count. When I promised my mother that I would curate her art and archives, neither of us realized how difficult it would be. I counted the paintings in her studio and the family collection, mailed a request for information to her collectors, and compiled a database of 1,200 works, out of an estimated 2,000 she created during her lifetime. I selected a representative 200 color plates … [Read more...]
Pork Cake or Persimmon: Women’s Stories Evolve
I've always found groups of women produce fascinating stories and brilliant solutions. Whenever I am in a transition, there are women around me in the same boat. We bond, magnetically –like Spanky and Our Gang– and the tide pulls us forth. There was an early writing group I dubbed Ladies of the Lake (LOL); then another, Great Ones (GO); I convened a series of Goddess Brunches to … [Read more...]
Honoring Our Mothers; Honoring Ourselves
On Monday, I had the privilege of sharing stories about our mothers with ten women I've known through my writing circles, yoga, and teaching. Our mothers had names like Evangeline, Antoinette and Margery. They raised gaggles of children, cleaned house wearing spike heels, and had dinner ready for their husbands every evening. We said their names. We honored their struggles. We shared our own. I've heard from many more than could attend that the pain of unresolved questions about mother … [Read more...]
A Woman’s Century of Wisdom: Margery Binkerd Wells Steer
For the twelfth day of Women's History Month, I honor my maternal grandmother, Margery Binkerd Wells Steer. She was born on a farm in New Canaan Connecticut, August 29th, 1899. She died at her daughter's home in Merchantville, New Jersey on April 10, 1992. In her 92 years, she was fond of remarking how much change she had witnessed and participated in. She came of age as women won the right to vote. She … [Read more...]
Day 11 of Women’s History Month: Dear Abby Still Rules!
It's hard to follow yesterday's Facebook tribute to Susan Bass Levin, esteemed former mayor of Cherry Hill and all-around mover and shaker, but as I considered my teenage quest for wisdom, I thought of a source I assumed had become obsolete, the newspaper column, Dear Abby. With very little research, I found the online column alive and kicking. It's now written by Jeanne Phillips, daughter of the original advice columnist, Pauline Esther … [Read more...]
Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing
I am happy to participate in this writer’s round robin after being tagged by the lovely poet Lorraine Henrie Lins (thanks, Lorraine!). After I answer the questions, I’ll tag two additional wonderful writers. What is the working title of your book? The working title was The Alice Book or OK FOREVER: Alice Steer Wilson’s Cape May. However, the real title – the one that will be printed on the book’s cover very soon, is Alice Steer Wilson: Light, Particularly. Where did the … [Read more...]
the Alice book goes to press . . .
Yesterday morning I made the final correction to the document that will become a book of my mother's art life, with more than 200 images from her studio. What was the final change? The addition of the title "POEMS" on the copyright page . . . it's interesting how many iterations it takes to get things right. This is not a book of my poems, but there are three of them in it. It is not my grandmother's book, but her portraits by her daughter are included (two of them) as well as two photos of her: … [Read more...]
respect for other
Fortune from Wednesday night's Chinese dinner: "Your respect for other will be your ticket to success." The grammarian in me corrected it first to "others" but then, as I am almost ready to go to press with the book about my mother's art, I made a different single-letter edit: "Your respect for Mother will be your ticket to success." :-) Generic Cialis if you think that it simple to celebrate that to big disappointment of many people. It not the truth. As it is necessary to spend … [Read more...]
The Unblank Page
OK, it’s not going to take me forever to do this book, but it is going to take longer than planned when I last posted on this blog. My mother’s journals were not blank, unlike those left to Terry Tempest Williams by her mother. The green post-its (above) mark passages to return to, share, possibly use as a caption or quote in the book. I’ve hung the paintings on the pages, and they have begun to tell me what’s in and what’s out. When I walked Paul through the gallery that forms the first … [Read more...]
Deadline Set: To the Studio!
Today I begin finalizing the text and images for the book on my mother’s art of Cape May. It has become so much more than a ‘pretty picture book’ and yet -- it is still pretty, and full of pictures. As my friend Kathleen Volk Miller advised, it will read as an inside story, a book that could only have been written by the painter’s daughter. Somehow, I had been trying to erase myself, to keep myself out of the picture. But, that’s crazy. Even the picture above has me in it: it’s her studio, yes, … [Read more...]
