Dr. Amy Freeman Lee: Artist, Educator, Experimenter

Amy Freeman Lee
1914-2004

Amy Freeman Lee lived in San Antonio, Texas, nearly her entire life. Freeman was a well-known and beloved Texas writer, artist, and lecturer. She has been represented in 1,253 national and international exhibitions, given 2,960 lectures and authored 255 publications. 

Amy Freeman was born to Julia Freeman and Joe Novich and she spent her early years in Seguin, Texas.  After her mother's death during the 1918 flu pandemic, she was legally adopted by her grandmother, Emma Freeman. In 1929 the family moved to San Antonio to enroll her in St. Mary's Hall from which she graduated in 1931, followed by special studies at the University of Texas in Austin. Lee attended Incarnate Word College in San Antonio and served as an assistant to the head of the English Department during the years of her attendance (1934-1942). Lee was married for several years to Ernest R. Lee an aide to General Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II, and she worked as an art critic for the San Antonio Press during that time. A Quaker by choice, she described her spiritual convictions as based in the concept of reverence for the unity of life.

After Lee began to paint seriously in 1945, she became staff critic on radio show for station KONO, analyzing music, art, literature, and other cultural activities. From that time until her passing, Lee continued her career as a painter and sculptor, lecturer, judge at art exhibitions, and author.



Amy Freeman Lee
Dark Forest
ca 1949
Oil on canvas
30 x 36 inches

As an artist, Lee's style evolved from traditional realism to various forms of non-objective art (but not abstract expressionism), and she produced watercolors of western scenes during the 1940s and early 1950s. Half of the works shown at her first one-person exhibition in San Antonio were of Texas subjects, among them were paintings done at El Rancho de los Hombres Libres, the family ranch near San Marcos and scenes in and around San Antonio, San Geronimo and Bandera.

Amy Freeman Lee
Twilight Image
ca 1955
12 x 9 inches
Ink on paper

Lee was widely exhibited and collected. Her work was shown from Maine, where she summered for many years, to Monterrey, Mexico, where she developed many lifelong friends. Lee supported literacy efforts and was a champion of the liberal arts. She delivered lectures to groups throughout the nation, sometimes traveling as far as New York or California to share her belief in the importance of art, civility, humane ethics and universal love. Her self-deprecating humor and wit allowed for lively presentations, and she remained among the most popular speakers in the state, even in later years when bouts of illness slowed her in the years prior to her death.

Amy Freeman Lee
Dawn Silence
ca n.d.
Watercolor
11.5 x 17 inches

As a respected artist, art critic, poet writer and philanthropist, Lee numbered many distinguished artists among her close friends, including renowned Texas painter Kelly Fearing and essayist Loren Eisley, whose parable The Star Thrower, Lee often cited in lectures and in her written work. Lee was an early supporter of the Witte Museum in San Antonio and a founder of the San Antonio Art League, later, a founder of the Texas Watercolor Society.

Amy Freeman Lee
Autumn Harps
ca. n.d.
Watercolor
13 x 10 inches

Lee received numerous awards including the Ford Motor Company Lifetime Achievement Award, the J.C. Penney Spirit of the American Woman and the International Women’s Forum’s The Woman Who Made A Difference Award. Lee was a member of the International Art Critics Association in Paris, France, and a charter member of the Advisory Council for the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. She was also a National Trustee and National Secretary of the Humane Society of the United States.

 

Lee's life was spent as an artist in service to the arts, education, and humanitarianism. In thousands of public lectures, she routinely credited her grandmother for instilling in her an abiding commitment to give back to others the gifts she received early in life. Those who were closest to her will never forget her characteristic sign-off: "I'm loving you."

 

Amy Freeman Lee
Private Life of Plants Series: Mystical Geometry
ca n.d.
Mixed media
30.37 x 24.37 inches

Amy Freeman Lee died peacefully, surrounded by close friends, at the age of 89.

___________________________
Sources
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick, University of Texas Press, Austin, p.185-186
Texas Women's University, Texas Women's Hall of Fame, http://www.twu.edu/twhf/tw-lee.asp, retrieved October 28, 2014
Images: Artnet, Amy Freeman Lee, http://www.artnet.com/artists/amy-freeman-lee/past-auction-results, retrieved October 28, 2014
AskArt: The Artist's Bluebook, Amy Freeman Lee,  http://www.askart.com/askart/l/amy_freeman_lee/amy_freeman_lee.aspx?GUID=1E6289D3-B98A-4896-85AA-689477277A60, retrieved October 28, 2014

Laura Adams Armer: Painter, Photographer, Writer, and Filmmaker

 

 

Laura Adams Armer
Portrait Study
ca. 1900

The Navajo called Laura Adams Armer "the woman who wears the turquoise" and "hard-working woman." She was the first white woman to have a sand painting prepared in her honor and the first permitted to film the sacred Mountain Chant ceremony (1928) for distribution as a feature-length film. Armer was a respected painter and photographer for many years before she turned her hand to writing. Her first book, Waterless Mountain (1931), published when she was fifty-seven years old, received both the Newberry Medal and the Longmans, Green & Company's prize for juvenile fiction.

Laura May Adams Armer grew up in San Francisco, was educated in public schools and by private tutors. By age 16, she demonstrated an ability in sketching and painting and attended the California School of Design during the years 1893-1898. Afterwards, she spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley. She also studied photography and in 1899, opened a studio in San Francisco where she catered to members of California high society. In the spring of 1902 she and her sister visited the Southwest for the first time and she wrote, "There at Tucson and in the Catalina Mountains I was first inoculated with the desert delirium." She was enchanted.

Laura married classmate Sidney Armer, also an artist, who later achieved fame as the highest paid commercial illustrator in California.  Following her marriage, Laura gave up her San Francisco studio and moved her darkroom to her home with Sidney across the bay in Berkeley. Armer continued her art photography there and in 1904, won four awards in the Kodak Competition. In 1905 she illustrated Theodore Elden Jones' book Leaves From an Argonaut's Note Book and in 1906, traveled on assignment to Tahiti.


Laura Adams Armer
Cover, Sunset Magazine
ca. 1911

As an artist, Armer worked around the birth of her son and exhibited at the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey (1907-1910) and at the Hillside Club in Berkeley in 1914 which featured leading women artists of California. Armer did a cover for Sunset Magazine and provided story illustrations as well. As a photographer, Armer received honors at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Seattle (1909), and at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco (1915).

In 1923, Armer returned to the Southwest. It was on this trip that she bought her signature turquoise earrings. Since few white women wore turquoise at the time, Armer's chance purchase gave her an entry to the Navajo and frequently proved helpful in times of delicate negotiations.
Fascinated by the Native Americans of the Southwest, Armer became a student of Navajo folklore and their religious rituals that involved sand painting. She enjoyed quite a bit of freedom to move about  for a woman alone during the early years of the twentieth century and, on occasion, she lived for months at a time in remote reservation areas.

True to her Navajo nickname "The Hard-Working Woman," Armer compiled volumes of notes, many of which she incorporated into her later novels, in addition to painting and photographing the people and their culture.



Laura Adams Armer
Native American Studies, Navajo and Hopi
ca. 1920s

In her collaboration with Lorenzo Hubbell  of the Hubbell Trading Post who became a mentor to Laura for the next fifteen years, her trips were organized into Navajo areas. Hubbell also helped to fund her 1928 documentary film, The Mountain Chant. Armer agreed to teach an art class in the nearby government school with the hope of meeting Native Americans and it was indeed a success; she had forty Hopi boys and girls in her first class. Because she spent so much time in the wilderness learning to embrace the quiet and spiritual nature of the Native Americans, she was allowed to photograph sacred religious rites and to film the Mountain Chant ceremony. With no previous filmmaking experience, Armer wrote, directed, edited, produced, and marketed the entire project. She even convinced Lorenzo Hubbell to make a major capital investment in the film. Since some of the public showings were narrated by Navajos in native tongue, The Mountain Chant is considered to be the first "all Indian" motion picture "in an aboriginal language."

Marketing the film was a nightmare and not of her skill set. Despite the rollercoaster of acceptance and rejection in Hollywood, the film was widely viewed by groups such as the Section of Anthropology and Psychology of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Explorer Club, and at the University of Pennsylvania, among others, however the film was not a commercial success. Armer turned to writing for solace and it was at that time that she was awarded the Newbury Medal for her book Waterless Mountain. The generous monetary award allowed she and her family to survive the Depression and, she continued to write.



Laura Adams Armer
Waterless Mountain
ca. 1931

Laura Adams Armer
The Traders Children
ca. 1937



Laura Adams Armer
The Forest Pool
ca. 1938

Armer wrote and illustrated Southwest which was published in 1935. The Traders Children followed in 1937 and was highly autobiographical as she inserted herself in the tale and referred to herself as "Aunt Mary," to Sidney as "Uncle Joe," Although Laura and Sidney lived apart for much of the Depression (Sidney found work in Detroit), their art continued to be intertwined. Laura's books, for example, were illustrated in one of three ways: by Sidney alone, by Laura alone, or by the two working together. In the case of Waterless Mountain, there are four illustrations by Laura, one by both Laura and Sidney, and the remainder by Sidney. In 1938, her book The Forest Pool was recognized as the most distinguished picture book of that year. The book was illustrated, in color, with her paintings.

Armer exhibited her western paintings in both solo and group shows. In 1963 many photographs taken by Armer on the Navajo Reservation and vicinity were put on display at the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art which owns the 97 copies she made of her Navajo sand paintings.

Laura Adams Armer
Hopi Women
ca. n.d.
Oil on canvas

Laura Adams Armer
Untitled Illustration for The Forest Pool
ca. 1938
Tempera
Donated by Helen Everett

Laura Adams Armer
Untitled Illustration for The Forest Pool
ca. 1938
Tempera
Donated by Helen Everett

____________________________________
Sources:
Women Artists of the American West, Women in Photography Archive, Peter E. Palmquist, http://www.cla.purdue.edu/waaw/palmquist/photographers/armeressay2.htm, retrieved October 10, 2014
Humbolt Arts Council, http://humboldtarts.org/Collection/artists/LauraAdamsArmer.html, retrieved October 10, 2014
artnet, Laura Adams Armer (American, 1874–1963) http://www.artnet.com/artists/laura-adams-armer/past-auction-results, retrieved October 10, 2014
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovnick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovnick, ed., p. 9

Women Artists in the West: Mary Achey, one of the Earliest Western Artists

There is a wonderful book entitled Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, edited by Patricia Trenton. The Introduction, Women Envision the West by Virginia Scharff is a fascinating accounting of the West as it was...wild, open, and a time of expansion and exploration into the unknown. As the frontier "closed" in 1890, some felt that an "epoch of American exploration had come to an end" while others felt that it was just beginning. The East was tame, established, and women's roles were clear, but not so in the West, where lawlessness existed and where women could defy societal constraints of which they had not created.

Women were slowly gaining political rights, as Wyoming was the first state to grant women full suffrage in 1890. The Chicago Exposition of 1893 featured a pavilion representing the state of California featured an art gallery in which more than half of those on exhibit were done by women. Women have worked in the West as long as humans have inhabited the region beginning with the earliest periods. Native Americans created pottery, wove, and made baskets.

As women, we approach life differently than men. Even today, women are still expected to do the lion's share of taking care of the home and children while we work full-time. We strive to connect with each other and to our own lives and to derive meaning. Family ties both empower and constrain women artists as we try to find their own artistic voices while we balance the responsibilities and demands of our families. Some of us want escape from the bonds of family and society while others find safety, comfort, and support from that community. Whatever our individual needs require, women face challenges that are unique to our gender and our work has, in many cases, taken a back seat to the artwork of men in the same social and racial class.

This is why I write the blog. I want to honor those women who took such incredible risks, especially during such an early, unsettled time in our history, and dared to push boundaries in both their lives and in their work.

We will examine the life and work of Mary Achey, one of the earliest documented female Western artists. The photograph that has been a part of this blog entry since its origination was identified by Achey's great-great granddaughter, Mary Gould, as another woman, however definitely NOT Mary Achey. I've looked in several different reference books and online but have yet to find an image that can be positively connected to Mary Achey. I've removed the photo and will replace it in the future if an appropriate one can be found.

A native of Ohio, Mary Achey executed her first known western works during the 1860s when she lived in Colorado. In 1862 and 65, Achey lived in Kansas and Missouri while her husband served in the Second Colorado Cavalry Volunteers. She produced drawings of army fort scenes in Colorado and Kansas. Achey became the territory's first resident female artist while living in Central City, Colorado and painted a number of views of Clear Creek that received attention in the Denver newspapers. Her painting of Lake Creek garnered praise as the "handsomest oil painting ever seen in Colorado" by the Rocky Mountain News in November of 1869.


Mary Achey
ca. 1860
Oil on canvas

In 1870, Mary Achey left her husband several years after the death of their only daughter from diphtheria. He apparently fell asleep during a night watch over her and Mary held him responsible. For the next fifteen years, Achey traveled throughout the West with her two sons. She settled for a time in Napa, California in 1875, where she listed herself as a portrait painter in the local directory. From there, Achey relocated to Healdsburg, California, approximately 40 miles northeast of Napa, then homesteaded land on the Upper Wishkah River near Aberdeen, Washington in 1881. By 1883, she began to visit Astoria, Oregon, a more profitable area for the sale of her paintings and she divided her time between Aberdeen and Astoria. In 1885, she married again to Emerson A. Woodruff of Canby, Oregon. Mary Achey died near Aberdeen, WA, Sept. 18, 1886.

According to her own accounts, Mary Achey completed over 500 works in oil, watercolor, pen and ink and pencil. Her subjects included landscapes of California, Oregon and Washington, army fort scenes, wild west genre, portraits, and still lifes, and she supported her two sons with the sales of her paintings. Because she lived and worked so long ago, it is difficult to get the correct titles and dates for her works.

Mary Achey
Nevadaville
ca. 1860
13.5 x 20.5 inches
Oil on canvas

Mary Achey
Montesano
ca. n.d.
Oil on canvas

Mary Achey
Landscape
ca. n.d.

___________________________________________
Sources:
Independent Spirits, Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, ed. Patricia Trenton
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovnick and Marian Yoshiki Kovnick
AskArt: The Artist's Bluebook, http://www.askart.com/askart/a/mary_elizabeth_achey/mary_elizabeth_achey.aspx, retrieved September 26, 2014.

Fra Dana: Artist, Range Rider and Rancher's Wife

 

Fra Dana
ca 1900

Now that summer vacation is over (sigh) and school has begun in earnest, I went on the hunt for another wonderful painter to bring to you. I discovered artist Fra Dana, a talented impressionist painter who was not only well-trained, but well-traveled.
Born in 1874, Fra Marie Broadwell (pronounced "Fray") grew up in Rockville Indiana. She studied with Joseph Henry Sharp at the Cincinnati Art Academy (founder of New Mexico's Taos Artist's colony), William Merritt Chase then considered the most important American artist and art instructor of the age (his Chase School of Art is now the Parsons New School for Design), and Alfred Maurer and Mary Cassatt in France. Sharp considered her a superb painter, once bestowing upon her the ultimate compliment in his eyes: "she paints like a Man!"

A talented youngster, Fra was encouraged by her stepfather to pursue her art studies. While still a student at the Cincinnati Art Academy, she made her first trip to the West in 1891, traveling by stagecoach with her mother and half-sister, Edna. The trio journeyed to visit land owned by her stepfather's family near Parkman, Wyoming and in 1893, they returned to settle there. The contrast between the urbane art world of New York City and the isolated rural life of late 19th century Wyoming was an enormous adjustment for the refined young woman. She was not one who romanticized the west. It was difficult to find others who shared her interests and had much education or travel experience such as she.



William Merritt Chase
Fra Dana

 ca 1897  University of Montana Museum of Fine Arts  Oil on Canvas  19 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches 

Fra met a fascinating man who peked her interest. Edwin L. Dana, ten years her senior and a successful Montana cattle rancher. They married at her mother's home in 1896. The rancher's holding grew, and by 1919, the Dana Ranch located in northern Wyoming and southeastern Montana, was possibly the largest cattle ranch of its kind in the United States. Legend says that Fra signed a pre-nuptial agreement before her marriage that permitted her to continue her art studies and to spend a portion of each year studying in New York and Europe. In reality, her husband supported her artistic endeavors in a way that was unusual for the times and encouraged her travel and her study.

As a rancher's wife, however, Dana rode the range, knew every phase of the business, served as secretary, bookkeeper, as well as hostess to ranch visitors. Fra was conflicted with her life in the Rocky Mountain West, but appeared to be unable to sever her connection with the region. Excerpts from her diary show the deeply felt tensions between her desire to be an artist and her role as a rancher's wife.

"Today is (Diego) Velazquez's birthday. I always keep it in my heart. But I speak no more of my vanished dreams. We spayed sixty-eight heifers this morning. It took from six o'clock until eleven of hard work. I tallied and got hungry and sleepy-so sleepy that I fell over against the gate post of the corral. This is life and the thoughts that I used to think were dreams. Beauty of any kind is a thing held cheap out here in the land of hard realities and glaring sun and alkali..." She was often lonely for the company of other artists and literary conversation such company would inspire.

Although Wyoming Territory first granted women the right to vote in 1869, long before the country ratified the 19th Amendment in 1920, political emancipation did not always lead to social liberation or professional autonomy. Dana was not accepted by many of her neighbors who judged it scandalous that she would be permitted to travel to Europe without her husband. There was no art community in her region, so she was without a support group with which to identify or be taken seriously as an artist.  

Because of her position and the wealth of her husband, Dana had studios in both Wyoming and Montana. She made as many as nine trips to Europe, looking for the nuances and beauty that she could not seem to find in Montana and Wyoming. The couple also kept and apartment in New York City. After suffering a nervous breakdown in New York in 1911, Dana reduced her travel. New movements such as Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Futurism were consuming the world of art, and while she read and sought about these new forms, Fra maintained her allegiance to the aesthetics and principles of Impressionism.

Dana painted a wide variety of subjects including self-portraits, portraits of ranchers and Native Americans, landscapes, animals and still-lifes.




Fra Dana
On the Window Seat
ca 1909
Oil on Canvas
 16 x 19 inches

Fra Dana
Turkeys and Hollyhocks
Oil on artist's Board
ca 1940 -1945
  18 x 24 inches
University of Montana



Fra Dana
White Peony against Red Background
ca n.d.
 oil on panel
University of Montana

In 1937, Fra Dana moved from the ranch to Great Falls, Montana, where she became good friends with novelist, Mildred Walker. Edwin visited often over the next nine years. When he retired from the ranch, he moved into the apartment with Fra. Although by then she was ill herself, Dana nursed Edwin until he died in 1946.

Shortly before her own death, Dana donated her paintings and her collection of work by Chase, Maurer, and Sharp, to the University of Montana. In a brief letter she wrote, "I do not know that there is anything to tell you about my life. My annals are short and simple. I was born, I married, I painted a little, I am ready to die."

Fra Dana
Birdcage
ca n.d.
Oil on panel
University of Montana

_________________________________________
Sources
Independent Spirits: Women Painters of the American West, 1890-1945, Patricia Trention, ed.
An Encyclopedia of Women Artist of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki-Kovinick
Art Montana, http://www.artmontana.com/article/dana/feature10.html, retrieved September 4, 2014
Missoulian, http://missoulian.com/lifestyles/territory/book-art-exhibit-provide-insight-into-fra-dana/article_c4ba0874-17aa-11e1-974b-001cc4c002e0.html, retrieved September 5, 2014
University of Montana, MMAC: Montana Museum of Art and Culture, retrieved September 5, 2014





Pompeii and Paestum

I've been teaching Advanced Placement Art History for twelve years and, in early 2013, finally achieved my educational dream of earning a PhD in that discipline. My focus was on early twentieth century female artists in America, several of which I've included in the course of this blog, however the teaching of the history of art includes all eras, all cultures, all economies, and everything that encompasses an "ism." This trip to Europe allowed my husband and me to explore two of my favorite sites of ancient art and architecture: Pompeii and Paestum. For those of you that are fortunate enough to have been, no description or photograph in a book can accurately capture the emotion of being there, standing where those people lived, worked, and played in cultures that no longer survive.

The city of Pompeii was an ancient town near Naples that was buried under twelve different layers of ash and other materials in the CE 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius which, you can see from the photo above, looms only about five miles in the distance. Covered beneath 25 meters of "stuff," the towns, which included Herculaneum and other villas in the area, were abandoned and their names became part of the legend of the area. In 1599, a small portion was uncovered in the digging of a channel, however, major excavations did not begin until 1738 when workers were digging the foundation for a summer palace for the King of Naples in Herculaneum. After that, by 1748, intentional excavations began in Pompeii by the Spanish Military engineer, Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre.

We battled our way through hoards of tourists who we hoped were there for the same reason we were; to learn about and perhaps experience a bit of what it was like to live in such a town 2,000 years ago. We spent most of the day exploring, but were not able to see some of the specific ruins that I wanted to view due to the enormous number of groups with tour guides making many of the lanes impassible.

Note to self: go back, OFF-season.

Despite the crowds, there were opportunities to shoot in somewhat less congested spots, and to get a feel for the peace and beauty of Pompeii as it might have been when it was just a town. In addition, there were sections of frescoes and sculpture everywhere. Pompeii suffers from the elements, however, and although restoration and the arrest of decay is ongoing, it is an outdoor, living museum, where almost nothing is protected under any kind of canopy or roof. As recently as 2010, the 2,000 year-old House of the Gladiators, a structure used by gladiators as they trained before fights, collapsed without a specific known cause other than age, exposure to the elements, and neglect.

Unlike in a typical museum, you can touch nearly everything. The sculpture below is situated along a wall outside the baths under a loggia (a covered walkway) with what was, at one time, a frescoed wall behind her. For me, the tactile, being able to feel the stone, the walls, walk on the streets where an entire colony of people thrived is a mystical thing-you can almost feel the spirit and the energy of those 20,000 souls whose lives were lost that tragic day.

I learned that there was no word in their language, which was Latin, for volcano. There hadn't been an eruption during their lifetimes and the tremors that were precursors to the event were shrugged off as merely familiar shaking, common in the Campania region.

We plan to return to Italy to further explore Pompeii and Herculaneum, and to see so much of what we were unable to find the first visit.

 

Our next stop was Paestum, a major Greek city established to south of Naples and founded about 600 BCE. It is the site of the ruins of three of the most spectacular Greek temples found anywhere. The Greek settlers called the city Poseidonia in honor of the Greek sea god, Poseidon. In spite of the name, however, Poseidonia probably did not have an important harbor. It was, at that time, separated from the sea by a shallow, fresh water lagoon and could be reached only by smaller ships. Because of its location on a fertile plain, Hera, the goddess of fertility, became the predominant divinity.

When you arrive by train from the Naples/Salerno area, the tiny station sits in the middle of beautiful countryside surrounded by fields and low hills in the distance. The views were postcard pretty in every direction. I had fun with some of the filters on my camera-this one is called, "Nostalgic."











It's quite a walk down a lovely country lane lined with trees and low stone walls. From the train station to the archeological site, we heard nothing but the sounds of birds as musical accompaniment along our trek. It was early in the morning, so we had the road to ourselves. As we strolled along, we could peer through openings in the trees along the way to catch sweet vistas of hills, farms, and houses. We were startled by intense squawking which turned out to come from a group of gorgeous peacocks that were completely uncooperative subjects to photograph.








The road from the train station ends at the Paestum site. As we headed around to the entrance past vineyards and all manner of crops, we saw the enormous temples in the early morning light. They looked simply unreal. Just like in Rome, it was mind-boggling to attempt to figure out how the ancients were able to construct such gigantic temples, amphitheaters, and coliseums with the technology of their day.


Unlike Pompeii, where there were crowds of people everywhere, Paestum was deserted. Only one other couple entered the site along with us at that early hour which was terrific on the one hand, but disappointing on the other. I don't think most tourists have ever heard of it, and it is only about a 30-45 minute trip directly south of the Naples area.

The temples were built starting in 550 BCE and constructed over a relatively short period. There are two temples to Hera, and one dedicated to Athena. Like Pompeii, you can walk up to most of the ruins, but, unlike Pompeii, it was quiet with time to reflect on the power of the Greeks who were able cross the sea to colonize in Southern Italy.

We were able to touch these magnificent monuments that stand from a powerful civilization that again, is no more. I grew up in and around Washington, D.C., surrounded by sites and architecture of some of the earliest history of America and yet, the Old Stone House, the oldest unchanged house in the city dates, back to just 1765. It's impossible not to be awed by the enormity of these ancient temples to the gods and their construction techniques.

Paestum is also known for its large numbers of painted tombs. The Tomb of the Diver is significant because it is the only known wall painting from the Orientalizing, Archaic, or Classical period (era designations to group Greek art and architecture) to survive in its entirety. The tomb was created about 470 BCE and the slab with the diver is one of five limestone blocks that make up the top and four sides to the tomb, all decorated in the fresco style. The fresco technique means the slabs were painted with plaster, after which a stylus was used to incise the design. The artist painted the incised outline in a thin red line, then filled in areas with black, red, blue, green, and white. The Tomb of the Diver is so-called because it depicts a young man diving off a stone platform into a pool and it is believed that the scene represents the plunge from this life to the next. This fresco is also in my Art History book and it was a thrill to see it in situ after looking at its photograph on a page for the last 14 years!

Next-from Paestum, we headed to Southern Italy to explore ancient mountain towns, and then flew north, to Venezia.

If you would like to discover more about the history of Pompeii and Paestum, here are several links:

Pompeii
http://www.italia.it/en/discover-italy/campania/poi/the-archaeological-site-of-pompeii.html
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/829
Paestum
http://proteus.brown.edu/greekpast/4716
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/paestum

What I did on my Summer Vacation

If you would be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to share some of the photographs I took on my magical trip to Italy, Norway, and England this past month. I am, after all, a female artist/photographer working in the West!

There was a method to our country selections...both my mother's parents are from central Italy in mountain towns northeast of Naples, my husband, Howard, has family on his father's side from the Gudbrandsalen valley in Norway, and his delightful cousin and her husband, stupendous tour guides both, live in lovely Cornwall, England.

Our intention was to continue to chip away at the "bucket list" of countries we want to visit and to plan for the next journey to catch some of the sights that we simply could not see in the time we allotted for each place. There is NEVER enough time to cover all of it, of course, but we managed to fill our heads with the most divine sights in New York, Rome, Pompeii, Paestum, Venice, Murano, Oslo, Flam and fjords, Newquay, and Port Isaac, the town that is the mythical Port Wenn in one of our favorite BBC offerings, Doc Martin. Our brains are now, full.

We flew from Los Angeles to New York and spent one night, hoping to ease into the anticipated, radical time change. We walked around Manhattan and enjoyed sights such as the Chrysler building, and hung out in Central Park for most of a perfect day, blessed with sunshine, low temperatures, and NO humidity.

We arrived in Rome the following morning and immediately hit the streets. Our pensione was located right in the ancient section of Rome, adjacent to the Markets and Column of Trajan, the Colosseum, the Forum, Arches of Constantine and Titus, and a short walk to the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain! This was the type of view from any of the seven hills of Rome.

 As an Art Historian who has been teaching the history of art for 14 years, standing in ancient Rome, especially inside the Colosseum and the Pantheon, was more moving than I can describe! To touch the buildings and to feel the spirit of those ancestors who lived 2,000 years ago offered a connection to history that I had never before felt, even though I had grown up in and around Washington, D.C., a place where the foundation of our nation and so many of our own historical sites and events are located.

The sheer enormity of the structures all over the city of Rome, both ancient and not-so-ancient, was staggering. We were left with mouths open just trying to make sense of the accomplishments of the Romans, their planning, and feats of technology that allowed them to create such massive temples, forums, and gathering places. They must have both intimidated and overwhelmed the "common" citizen then, as they do now.

One of my favorite buildings, the Pantheon (temple to all gods), is just magnificent. It is the best preserved building from the ancient Roman period which housed statues of the pagan gods. Commissioned by Marcus Agrippa during the rein of Augustus, it was rebuilt by the emperor Hadrian in about CE 126. It has survived, unlike other ancient Roman structures, as it was converted into a Roman Catholic church during the Seventh Century.
The Pantheon entombs the remains of the early Renaissance painter, Raphael, and includes a bust of the artist, as well as the remains of his fiance, who unfortunately died before their marriage.

We managed to see the Circus Maximus where chariot races occurred and the Baths of Caracalla (Emperor of Rome from CE 211-217), both located near the ancient Appian Way, a short metro ride from our pensione. Again, the sheer magnitude of the baths was mind-boggling!

The ruins are incredibly well-preserved and include an array of mosaics that are still partially intact. The baths were easily able to accommodate up to 1,600 bathers who moved between three pools: frigidarium (cold), tepidarium (warm) and calderium (hot). Adjacent to the frigidarium were two massive zones called the Palaestra; gymnastic areas open to the sky. The Natatio, at the back of the building, held an Olympic-sized pool for recreational swimming. Along with the aforementioned, gardens and a library were included on the grounds. The baths are precurssors of modern gyms that provide their members places to socialize and to work out.


Our pensione, a small, family-run hotel, was located on the Via Cavour, which was a metro stop and a very busy thoroughfare that leads right down to the Forum. Entrance from the street through a gate, however, led to a lovely, private, courtyard and our room was at the back looking over a small lane. It was very much a city neighborhood with shops and restaurants along the lane. People stopped to chat with their neighbors and shop owners, and we hung out at the window just watching the activity during our occasional "down time."

Since we live in Southern California, and even in times of no drought get very little rain, we loved the afternoon thunderstorms that rolled through the city each day. I bought the typical five Euro tourist umbrella that turns inside out as soon as the wind picks up (and it did), but it served me well through the entire trip, and I left it in its entirety in Cornwall.

Rome is indeed a place to which we want to return. There is still so much to see!

Next stop: Pompeii and Paestum.

Cor de Gravere: Dutch Portraitist and Landscape Painter

Cor de Gravere
1877-1955

A tenacious woman who was able to overcome almost unimaginable adversity and prevailed on her own terms, Cornelia de Gavere was born in Battavia, Java, East Indies in 1877. She was the daughter of Dr. Cornelius and Marchje (Berghuis) de Gavere, Dutch missionaries. Cor lost both parents and two brothers when she was just six years old. The young Cor was sent to Groningen, Holland with her sister to live with a stern aunt and uncle who took in the orphaned children. They promptly sent her sister off to boarding school, so childhood was a lonely time for Cor. Separated from her sister, she was sent off to boarding school as well. Her developing interest in art during these years was viewed with disfavor by her uncle. He prevailed upon her to take a position as an assistant pharmacist where she worked for a time in Amsterdam, although she continued to draw and paint whenever possible.
In 1907, at the age of 30, Cor committed to the study of art and she entered the Royal Academy of the Hague. She received a number of honors while attending school there. Upon completion, de Gavere moved to the small Dutch artist's colony at Blaricum to paint and she studied in paris for three years. During these years she established a lasting friendship with Wilhelmina Van Tonnigen, who gave her the motherly encouragement and support that she had missed in her early childhood. 

In the year 1911, de Gavere exhibited at the Annual Derby Exhibition and at the London Salon between 1912 and 1914. She also exhibited at the British Royal Academy. In addition, in 1914, Cor studied in Paris with Charles Guerin in his atelier, but as World War I raged, served with the Red Cross as a volunteer nurse in Paris.

Cor de Gravere
Santa Cruz Portrait
ca. n.d.
Oil on Canvas
24 x 30 inches

In 1920, at age 43, de Gavere immigrated to the United States with Van Tonnigen, her friend during the years study at the Dutch Academy, and two women were warmly welcomed by the local Dutch community in the Santa Cruz area in California. During the 1920s, de Gavere exhibited as one of the ''Santa Cruz Three'' with Rogers and Leonora Penniman. Beginning in 1928, when the shows were initiated, she exhibited frequently at the Santa Cruz Art League's statewide exhibitions. Her other exhibitions included those of the SFAA; California State Fair, Sacramento; West Coast Arts, Inc., Los Angeles; Oakland Art Gallery; GGIE; and Society for Sanity in Art, San Francisco.

Cor de Gravere
Twin Lakes Beach, Santa Cruz
ca. 1920s
Oil on canvas board
 10 x 12 inches

During her thirty-five year residency in Santa Cruz, de Gavere worked as a librarian at both the Seabright and Garfield branch libraries, and was a founder of the Santa Cruz Art League. She painted nearly every day. Cor found a painting companion in Margaret Rogers, one of the guiding forces of the Santa Cruz Art League through the 1920s through the 1940s. The two artists made frequent excursions to paint locally and, on occasion, in the Sierra Nevada and elsewhere in the state. Most of her work resulted from trips with Rogers, although she also painted portraits. Her landscapes had titles like Turtleback Mountain; Mountain Meadow; Big Sur Cypress; Sierra Camp; The Three Graces; Blue Lupine Field; Pleasure Point, Moran Lake; Sierra Snow Bank; and Eucalyptus Meadow. 

Cor de Gravere
On the Ridge
ca. 1920s
Oil
14 x 19 inches

Cor de Gavere
California Oak
ca. n.d.
Oil on canvas
16 x 20 inches

An "everywoman," Cor wrote poetry, played music, and was active in local theater. Her work is represented in the collections of the Santa Cruz Historical Society and the Santa Cruz City Museum. Cornelia de Gavere died on June 25, 1955, while visiting family in The Hague, Netherlands.

Member: West Coast Arts; Berkeley Art League; Bay Region Art Association

Exhibited: Royal Academy (London), 1911; London Salon, 1912-14; SFAA, 1924; Oakland Art Gallery, 1928, 1934; Santa Cruz Art League, 1934; Society for Sanity in Art, CPLH, 1940; Santa Cruz Public Library, 1974 (retrospective).

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Sources
Santa Cruz Public Libraries, Cor de Gavere, Artist. 1877-1955, Nikki Silva, 1984, http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/articles/222/, retrieved June 4, 2014.
Trotter Galleries, Biography Cornelia de Gavere, Artist. 1877-1955, http://www.trottergalleries.com/artistbio.asp?at=CorneliadeGavere&InvNo=, retrieved June 5, 2014.
California View Fine Arts, Cor de Gavere, http://www.californiaviewfinearts.com/c_d_gavere.htm, retrieved June 5, 2014.
An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West, Phil Kovinick and Marion Yoshiki Kovinick, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1998.
WWWAA; Benezit; Johnson &. Greutzner; Petteys; Moure; Hughes; Cor de Gavere; Hethcock; Rogers; Santa Cruz Sentinel-News, 18 Feb 1931, 9 Jan 1949, 2,4 Jun 1951, 18 Nov 1951, 4 Nov 1952, 1 Feb 1953, 1 Jul 1955, 5 Jul 1955, 28 Mar 1971, 4 Aug 1974;11 Aug 1974; Calif State Library card (1925).