Women and art. With all the castles and historic places and galleries I attended in Scotland and London, the most important work of art was at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, The Royal Collection, her self-portrait.
La Pittura (Self-portrait as the Allegory of Painting, 1638-39) is a Renaissance painting of a woman by a woman. That was simply not done in that era. I went to the exhibit by myself and ran into several women in this corner looking at this extraordinary work of art. All women, and amazed at the talent and bravery of one woman in 1638.
All my life I’ve been amazed at the talents of women that mainly get passed over by men. Family is a given with Owee, Mom, Joan and Lorna and Aunt Anna on Dad’s side. My violin teacher, Nancy S., Sallie P., Carol H., Mrs. H. (ballet and tap), Joanie and her Mom of course.
My H.S. French teacher, gymnastics coach, Margaret Fox and all my favorite female chefs (no, you’re not on Food Network).
Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Florence Nightengale, and then we have the story tellers. Joan Baez with Diamonds and Rust, Kate Wolf and the wildwood flower, my celtic storytellers and now Ms. Juni Fisher.
There are many more and that’s a good thing, because there can never be too many women to emulate. Given that we’re over 50% of the population, we need our girls to aspire to something great, like President. When I was six years old I had three precious books. One was “Four Days” about the death of JFK, another was about Abraham Lincoln, and the last about Annie Oakley, who was my heroine of the day.
What ties this together is that Jane, another heroine, is helping to restore a work of art by Artemesia Gentileschi. I believe women painted in those days but just weren’t given credit for it. Artemesia was brazen (not in a bad way) to paint herself this way.
