“Bloom where you are planted” is an adage we’ve all probably heard, and the sentiment is a positive one: do your best no matter what your circumstances. Clytie (above), painted by Evelyn De Morgan in the late 1880s, is perhaps an extreme example. De Morgan’s image is stunning, yet underneath that floral beauty is a darker story. You see, she…
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Navigating Life’s Labyrinths
For me, myths are a touchstone, a framework that helps me work out some of life’s thorniest dilemmas. Recently, I’ve been dealing with a series of daunting, pivotal decisions. But I am now escaping that labyrinth – happily and on my own terms. BILL MOYERS: I like what you say about the old myth of Theseus and Ariadne. Theseus says…
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Finding Fireflies Amidst the Fireworks
When Waterhouse’s exquisite Hylas and the Nymphs was controversially removed from exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery recently, I wrote that it would be far more beneficial to promote images that empower women instead of removing a masterpiece to provoke a reaction. The painting has since been returned to display at the Gallery, and it was later revealed that its removal…
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Bothered by Art Censorship? #MeToo
The Manchester Art Gallery announced this week that it has removed from exhibition the painting Hylas and the Nymphs by J.W. Waterhouse, and also the post cards of it in its gift shop. The gallery’s stated goal is to “challenge this Victorian fantasy” of “the female body as either a ‘passive decorative form’ or a ‘femme fatale.'” The move feels hollow…
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Exploring Sponsa de Libano
Sponsa de Libano is inspired by the Song of Solomon: ‘Awake O North wind; and come then south; blow upon my garden that the spices thereof may flow out.’ (Song of Solomon 4:16) “I drew the South wind one day and the North wind the next. Such a queer little model I had, a little Houndsditch Jewess, self-possessed, mature and…
