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The Grand Women Artists Of The Hudson River School

July 27, 2010  •  Smithsonian.com

When Americans took to travel and tourism in the mid-19th century, exploring the great landscape around them brought particular challenges, especially to women, who were constrained by the strictures of proper behavior and dress. But that didn't stop a coterie of female artists like Susie M. Barstow, who not only climbed the principal peaks of the Adirondacks, the Catskills and the White Mountains, but also sketched and painted along the way—sometimes "in the midst of a blinding snow-storm," according to one account.

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Botanical Gardens Look For New Lures
Food And Cocktails Vie With Orchids

July 27, 2010  •  The New York Times

For the last quarter century, the Cleveland Botanical Garden went all out for its biennial Flower Show, the largest outdoor garden show in North America. With themed gardens harking back to the Roman empire, or an 18th-century English estate, the event would draw 25,000 to 30,000 visitors.

But in 2009, the Flower Show was postponed and then abandoned when the botanical garden could not find sponsors. This year, the garden has different plans. From Sept. 24 to 26, it is inaugurating the "RIPE! Food & Garden Festival," which celebrates the trend of locally grown food — and is supported in part by the Cleveland Clinic and Heinen's, a supermarket chain.

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Where Paint and Poetry Meet
Charles Demuth's 'The Figure 5 in Gold' is a witty homage to William Carlos Williams and one of his poems

July 10, 2010  •  The Wall Street Journal

Even children are drawn, viscerally, to "The Figure 5 in Gold," one of the most recognizable works in American Modernism. Painted in 1928, its vibrant red, black and gold fire-engine motif barrels at the viewer, delivering a "Pow!" that Pop artists strived to achieve a few decades later. Somehow, the bold image manages to transmit not only the speed but also the screams of a fire truck weaving its way through a crowded New York street.

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Ancient Greeks Speak To Our Modern Lives
A Cultural Conversation With Peter Meineck

July 8, 2010  •  The Wall Street Journal

No one would have predicted how the young Peter Meineck would turn out. At 15, he was expelled from his tough South London boys' school, populated by assorted ruffians, and went to work as a laborer. At 16, he signed up for the Royal Marines—his only goal at the time. But he was a smart kid, and in 1985, "when England was waking up to the idea of letting the non-upper classes into university," Mr. Meineck began studying at University College London. There, he met "an amazing professor," who took one look at his shaved head, a relic of the Marines, and said, "You should study Aeschylus, because he's a soldier like you." He did. "I thought, wow, you can be a soldier and a great playwright," Mr. Meineck recalls. "And I found I loved Greek drama."

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A Playwright In The Grand Manner: His Latest Is Not A Farewell
A Cultural Conversation With A.R. Gurney

June 29, 2010  •  The Wall Street Journal

To those who know little about A.R. "Pete" Gurney, his new play simply pays homage to Katharine Cornell, the onetime "First Lady of the American Stage," and to the greatness of Broadway theater in its heyday. To those more acquainted with him, "The Grand Manner" is also about the prolific Mr. Gurney and his own career.

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