Hog butcher for the world/Tool Maker/Stacker of Wheat/Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;/Stormy, husky,brawling,/City of the Big Shoulders…. From “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) Since 2006, Chicago has been the City of Big Legs as well as Big Shoulders, in this controversial sculpture by Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz. The installation consists of 106 headless, armless, and backless figures,
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While cleaning out some shelves of stationery at my house, I recently came across this postcard image of another painting I don’t own but wish I did: Inari, by Susan Seddon Boulet. According to the postcard caption, the painting dates from 1996. Boulet died the following year. Like Boulet’s Fox Maiden, this painting shows a kitsune, a fox spirit. Kitsune
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One July day in 1997, while sneezing my way up the musty steps to the “bargain attic” of Poor Richard’s Book Store in Frankfort, Kentucky, I saw a framed page on the wall, in what appeared to be hand-set type; perhaps a product of Kentucky’s Larkspur Press. At first glance, I took the text to be that of a translation
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