Just realized I completely forgot to read up for my #sundaybuddyread 🤦🏻‍♀️ I ended up working Tuesday - Friday to cover for a teacher off with the flu and I‘m in again tomorrow. My weekend got thrown driving to Toronto to pick up oldest who‘s come home from Uni to start a teacher practicum tomorrow, these chunksters are killing me #readingforecast #nonfictionnovember #europacollective #littenslovesjm

Ch 40: Constantin Brâncuşi Look up. Mona has a second MRI ( I‘ve had one once and I never thought I was claustrophobic until that day) Mona and Dadé stop outside by the funnels ( lower left) actually called the ‘Igor Stravinsky Fountain‘ to watch a bird charmer which segues well into CB‘s ‘Bird in Space‘ c 1941( upper middle) which isn‘t housed in the main museum but in the Atelier Brâncuşi, a side building ( lower right) cont‘d

I went out for coffee today. In the snow. I shall retire to my books for the remainder of the day.

Saturday night is brought to you by a G&T and a new read

I admire his transparency about his anxiety - it sounds so debilitating and exhausting
I‘m glad he thanks his wife becasue holy shit she lifts and carries the family often

Ch 39: René Magritte Listen to your subconscious. It‘s August and Mona has a birthday. She gets a puppy that Dadé refuses to bring on museum trips. So she will recount her visits to Cosmos like Marcel Broodthaers did with a cat ( lower left and middle). Surrealism is today‘s genre with RM‘s ‘The Red Model‘ ( upper left) the paining is classically painted with oils and technique but it‘s unsettling cont‘d

Saturday morning reading in bed to finish this. Please note the death tower in the background - all unread, not causing me any stress. I wanted to love this book and there are parts that I did, the magic, the sisterhood but the miscommunication went on too long and then wrapped up too fast and the bad guys weren‘t as awful as presented and all I know is it took way too long to finish it when I should have inhaled it 🤷🏻‍♀️maybe it‘s me

Ch 38 Georgia O‘Keeffe The world is one flesh. Summer holidays are here & Mona is missing her friends, she decides to write a journal including all she has learned with Dadé. They go to see Georgia O‘Keeffe‘s ‘ Red, Yellow and Black Steak‘ ( upper right) GK is an American artist who exemplifies the Bigger is Better ideal that the US is well known for because of its size and fountain drinks ?. GK‘s painting is of Lake George ( lower right) cont‘d

#fridayhappyreadinghour apparently I‘m in my chunkster era on a few levels 🤷🏻‍♀️ wishing all who celebrate the happiest of Friday reading hours

Bag #5 this book is expressing really well how exhausting anxiety is 😢

Ch 37 Kazimir Malevich Make yourself autonomous. Mona gets multiple eye tests done and passes all with flying colours. Her eye sight is exemplary. So Dadé takes them to see KM‘s ‘Black Cross‘ ( lower right) which is part of a new movement; Futurism. “..a movement that advocates constant change, the metamorphosis of everything, all the time, often with violence”. He wants to take painting back to elementary forms, pared down abstractions cont‘d

Ch 36: Marcel Duchamp Stir everything Up. Paul causes a stir at the Sunday market with his prototypes of old dial phones converted to allow cell phones ( top left) & gets quite a few orders. Dadé and Mona head to Beaubourg walking by the Bazar de l‘Hôtel de Ville, BHV ( top right) which is where MD‘s ‘Bottle Rack‘ ( bottom right) originated from, he called it ‘ready-made‘. Later on MD would submit ‘Fountain‘ ( bottom left) to an exhibition cont‘d

Next up on audio and bag #3

Ch 35: Vassily ( Wassily) Kandinsky Find the spiritual in each thing. The school year is ending for Mona and so is elementary school too, a major milestone. A new museum for us, Centre Georges-Pompidou ( upper left photo) but called by most French “Beaubourg” the place, instead of the modern art loving French President. The art today, ‘Study for the cover of the Almanach Der Blue Reiter‘ is actually a journal cover for a group of artists cont‘d

Doubling up on coffee this morning

I‘ve had my air pods in all day! I‘ve vacuumed, washed toilets, made apple crisp, made Rice Krispie squares using Count Chocula cereal, done bag #2 on the Botanical Garden, multiple loads of laundry and dug up the tomato plants just in time for yard waste pick up 👏🏻👏🏻✊🏻 and finished this book in a day. I had no idea you could get TB beyond your lungs! Also we need to take better care of each other! #nonfictionnovember

I have waited forever for this but now that it is #nonfictionnovember the timing is perfect

Ch 34: Piet Mondrian Simplfy. Mona‘s last hypnosis session = the truth is out about her sight failing twice, Mona‘s last Wednesday at Musée d‘Orsay but art therapy will continue over summer vacation ? PM‘s ‘Haystacks III‘ c1908 (top right) what?! This can‘t be Mondrain! says everybody everywhere. And so we learn. ‘Mill of Heeswijk‘ c1904 is an early Mondrian when he was doing a Vermeer-ish realism style. Then he found Expressionism cont‘d

Bag #2 of Botanical Gardens. I LOVE Ali Smith ❤️ and I love this book! Written in 2016 the divisiveness of Britain is reflective of the US right now, the art talk fed into my obsession with Mona‘s Eyes, and the relationship between young Elisabeth and old Daniel creating a bridge between generations ❤️❤️❤️ I can‘t wait to listen to the next 3 in this quartet

I am committed to finishing this, hopefully in November but absolutely in 2025. I started it in 2014, it was a gift. My plan then was to read a chapter a month. It is so full of information and real life stories, it can be overwhelming and break your heart. Today I read schizophrenia; “autism is characterized by an over abundance of synaptic connectivity, schizophrenia is marked by a dearth of it.” #nonfictionnovember #finishwhatyoustarted

I‘ve been waiting forever for this audio book and to start this massive Lego set - both are spectacular

Where did I hear about this? Here, obviously, but from who? Holy Hannah this is freaking fantastic on audio and gruesome and unput down able when everything starts going to shit!!!!

Ch 33: Vilhelm Hammershøi Make your inner self talk. Paul‘s tinkering = success and Mona is ashamed that her joy for him is tinged with worry about him backsliding into drinking ? Dadé and Mona walk thru‘ the Tuileries Garden ( bottom left) for ice cream on their way to Musée d‘Orsay. The sunlight thru‘ the trees has Dadé telling her about ‘phosphene‘ light spots on the retina & Brion Gysin‘s ‘Dreamachines‘ ( upper right) cont‘d

A little behind thanks to so much baseball 💔 so Sunday morning is for reading up for #sundaybuddyread with my coffee in a cup from Nice where I went to museums full of Picassos and my reading chair TBR is updated to include #finishwhatyoustarted #allergictochunksters #nonfictionnovember #literarycrew and my latest mini Lego set

October wrap up has a lot of love stories in it in all the ways that love can be

Ch 32: Gustav Klimt Let death wishes live. Mona is growing up, summer approaches and she worries about the time with her Dadé and art ending. They visit GK‘s ‘Rose Bushes Under the Trees‘ ( bottom left) which imo looks like magic painted onto a canvas which Dadé explains, with Mona‘s help, to be an explosion “an enthusiastic dynamism” this esthetic comes from Impressionism, mosaic based on tessellae ( bottom right) and decorative arts cont‘d

Happy Halloween and Let‘s Go Blue Jays 🎃⚾️

Ch 31 Camille Claudel Love is a desire and desire is a lack of something. Mona is hypnotized again and is physically ill because of it ☹️ Mona & Dadé go to look at sculpture today, first they watch art students study Rodin‘s Thought ( top left) a portrait of Camille. ‘The Age of Maturity‘ ( top right) was a commissioned piece that CC used to show the fallout of her relationship with Rodin (bottom right) who returned to Rose, leaving CC cont‘d

Ch 30: Vincent Van Gogh Pin down your dizziness. Mona is quite melancholy about her grandmother, Collette, & how little information she knows about her. Mona & Dadé look at ‘The Church of Auvers‘ (top right) Van Gogh loves the church & people but he is over empathetic so this love leads to madness. His infamous ‘Starry Night‘ was painted while he was recovering in a mental hospital. My Lego set (bottom right) captures the movement in the night sky

Wine not Wednesday, finished this - I like this witchy series but some of the dialogue is cringe

Ch 29 Edward Burne-Jones ( upper middle) Cherish melancholy. Mona teaches the class all about George Seurat and his painting and feels she is rubbish at it ☹️ she and Dadé look at ‘The Wheel of Fortune ( top left) and learn about the Pre-Raphaelites, a brotherhood of English painters “these artists sought to return to an ideal previous to Raphael” this is the Industrial Revolution era of Queen Victoria and immoral visions cont‘d

I started this cute little Dia de los Muertos Lego set

A Pemberley Lego design by TJ Bricks has received enough fan support that it‘s reached the stage where Lego is deciding whether to turn it into a real set. This is the kind of joy I need in my life ❤️

Ch 28: Paul Cézanne Come, fight, sign, and persist. Mona under goes hypnosis and is reliving being blind but keeps going back in time to being 18 mons and being with her grandmother. ‘Montagne Sainte-Victoire‘ was painted ‘on the spot‘ by Cézanne, he painted this sight over 90 times! Cézanne‘s style is more solid, he stacks paint like pieces on his canvas, than Monet, who dabs and dilutes his paint for an ethereal look. Cont‘d

Ch 27: Edgar Degas Life must be danced. Mona investigates her grandmother and finds a clue that is unsettling. Dadé and Mona look at The Star by Edgar Degas ( top right). I took ballet from age 5 to 16 and my studio had Degas prints hanging in it for inspiration like Dance Class ( top left I took at MOMA ) and The Star. The pose in The Star is ‘arabesque pencée‘ ( lower right) Dadé is comfortable talking about technique cont‘d

That didn‘t last nearly long enough but at least I‘m younger than when the author said you really need to start thinking about people dealing with your crap once you are dead. My parents, bless their hearts, totally dealt with their stuff ahead of time.

Trying to purge my way to better mental health today and I‘m not sure there is anything gentle about it

Ch 26: Claude Monet All flees, all fades. Saint-Lazare Station (top right) lower right is a photo of the station today. Hélène, the curator, takes Mona and Dadé behind the scenes of Orsay to see Monet‘s painting set up as it was painted ‘sur le motif‘ (on the spot) on a 3 legged easel. Impressionism was known for this method of painting, thanks to portable paint. Mona gets to see behind the painting for the first time cont‘d

I finished my little Halloween Lego wreath and this book. I loved the insight into artistic inspiration but the domestic violence was hard to listen to. The insecurity/inner dialogue behind the violence was insightful and harrowing as you felt the frustration build. The dual time line was well done with characters in both mirroring each other which was fun until it was scary. There is a paranormal aspect to this story some might not buy into

Ch 25 : Édouard Manet Less is more. More hypnotherapy for Mona, she sees her grandmother. Then the father of Impressionism, Manet. The Absinthe Drinker ( left) caused a fallout with his teacher, Luncheon on the Grass ( right) is turned down by the Salon and shown at the Salon des refusés where the public tries to deface it. His Olympia ( bottom) is of a prostitute and further cements his reputation of painting obscenities. Cont‘d

#fridayhappyreadinghour Happy Friday Reading Hour to all who celebrate and 🎶Ok Blue Jays , Let‘s play ball 🎶 starting a new book and getting read for the game

Ch 24: Julia Margaret Cameron Life flows into what is hazy. Mona and Dadé meet ‘friends‘ from the Louvre outside at Alfred Jacquemart‘s rhino stature ( centre) fun fact my city‘s museum has a rhino statue by Tom Benner outside too ? inside Dadé shows Mona JMC‘s photograph of Mrs Herbert Duckworth and launches into a long explanation of how photography worked then. Mona‘s takeaway; painting & photography were reversed then in effort, cont‘d

There goes my day! I shirked all responsibilities today in favour of inhaling this, as one does. Not unhappy with my life choices. Tomorrow will bring enough adulting.

Ch 23: James Whistler A mother is the holiest thing alive. Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1 aka Portrait of the Artist‘s Mother. Who was 67 in the painting! Yikes, I‘m 61 and feel ancient all of a sudden. Whistler‘s signature is a butterfly because he underwent a metamorphosis after joining Chile to fight the Spanish colonists. He went from charming and whimsical to violent and vengeful.

Here I go, reading a recently purchased book instead of saving it forever as I am want to do

This story is so INTENSE!

I‘m ready for #sundaybuddyread I really enjoyed this historical murder mystery set in LA in 1932. Old Hollywood glamour, Chinatown, corrupt politicians/police, so many twists and turns it was hard to trust anyone or figure out what was a clue or a red herring.

#wdncw we do not care that the death tower is judging us! New books bring joy! Get. In. My. Cart.

Ch 22: Rosa Bonheur The animal is your equal. Plowing in the Nivernais. RB felt that animals had a beauty that equaled humans, giving them majesty in her painting. Similar to the bronze lion statue by Antoine-Louis Barye at the entrance of the Orsay. It is thought that George Sand‘s descriptions of animals in The Devil‘s Pool inspired RB‘s painting ( both the painter & the writer were unconventional women cont‘d

I LOVED The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches so this was a no brainer purchase. And I loved its cozy hygge found family message. But it is bittersweet 🙁 #iwantitall #magicandtheman