It's been a busy month, with interviews accross the state from Buffalo to Rochester, and then Vermont. This has not left much free time for painting or writing blogs. While in Vermont, I stayed at Anne Rowley's house, where her sons still run a dairy farm with about 400 holsteins according to Margaret. Margaret and Anne let me sort throughthe old books that were taken from the Milton farm, that so far no one else has wanted. The books included Helen Shanley's nursing books from the turn of the century, including histology, and a slim volume from the late 1800's on writing prescriptions in Latin--Humpf! No more.

The most precious text though was on the subject of law. The title was Roman Civil law, and the date printed in Roman numerals is 1724. The typeface has "s"'s that look like f's to me. It is very old. I have been looking at these books, and already have taken images from one book: pair of pictures of ribcages, and placed it in a new painting. One set of ribs is of a woman whose ribs were deformed by the use of laces and some sort of corset; the other set is normal. What a contrast. The descriptions of what happens to the internal organs is rather graphic and discourages such practices. Now, if we could just free our minds from the assault of modern advertisements that teach us to loath the natural shape of our bodies, we might terminate the practices that enslave our bodies and our pocketbooks for all time.

I was struck recently by a magazine article that I read on tummy tucks while getting my hair cut. Not being used to reading such magazines, I felt rather shocked by it--I know I'm out of touch with the popular culture by and large, but still.... It's awful to think that people today are still spending vast sums of money to make themselves over physically in to conform to popular notions of beauty. We haven't learned much of anything it seems in the last 200 years.