It took me a moment to realize that the charred bricks on the auction table were not what they seemed. They were arranged in three rows and looked like the scarred ruins from a fire. As I…
Category: Art
First, I saw the beige quilt with the red and tan pattern. It was much lovelier than most quilts I’d seen at auction. It was folded on top of furniture at the auction house and surprisingly, no…
Augusta Savage is one of those great unknown artists. That’s not surprising given that she was both black and female. The art world – heck, the world on a whole – has never fully valued…
Looking for signs of blackness in the Marvel universe
Posted in Art, and Comic books
I knew exactly what I wanted to see when I entered the “Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes” exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Who would I find among Marvel’s black superheros? I knew Black…
The painting showed a lone black man in a pastoral scene emboldened with brilliant tones of caramel colors. I ventured closer to it, eager to find out who had created such a powerful image. I…
Enslaved Africans on illustrated pages of Harper’s Weekly
Posted in Art, and Ephemera/Paper/Documents
The sheets of yellowing pages emblazoned with “Harper’s Weekly” instantly attracted me. During the Civil War, the newspaper was famous for its illustrations of the war’s battles, its wins, its losses and its politics. Harper’s…
The painting was a simple oil of an old man in a buggy pulled by a mule. In the background – which appeared to be too close and too overbearing – was a building with an…
I couldn’t resist the five ceramic sculptured busts sitting on a table at the auction house. They resembled those anatomical models with pull-apart heart, lungs, stomach and other parts of the body that are used in…
A great day to pick up lovely pottery
Posted in Art, collectibles, Home, and pottery
For a second, I thought I had walked into a ceramics pottery store. Or one of those “make your own” pottery shops with students’ creations lining the shelves of two tall and expansive stands. This…