One of the most delightful things I’ve realized recently is I’m still completely in love with the work of designer Kaffe Fassett. His use of colour in a myriad of media (painting, knitting, quilting, mosaics, fabric, needlepoint, etc.) was inspiring to me when I was a serious knitter in my teens and twenties. I heard …
A recent addition to my London books collection is Pictorial London: Views of the Streets, Public Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Metropolis, published 112 years ago in 1906 by Cassell & Company. It’s a hardcover green cloth-bound monster of a tome, containing 500+ black and white images, and part of a job lot I brilliantly …
A final set of photos from my Portugal trip, including a Gothic monastery with roses, Roman ruins, port wine, a miracle, two pilgrimages, and penance, plus wistful cows.
Here’s a next set of photos, from the UNESCO world heritage site of Évora, to a cork oak estate, a local market and medieval monastery (Alcobaça), a fishing town and beach (Nazaré), and a fortified hill town (Óbidos).
In the summer of 2018, I was pleased to have a chance to visit Portugal for the first time. Why Portugal? Fundamentally, I was intrigued with the country’s maritime history, leading to a seafaring empire in the sixteenth century. Beyond that, and the existence of the Portuguese community in Toronto, I didn’t know much. Soccer, …
Last week I was in Washington D.C., on the way to a conference in Baltimore. It was my fifth time in D.C. since a first memorable class trip from Toronto at the impressionable age of 13, which included a heartbreaking visit to the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. As on previous D.C. trips, I …
“If you don’t go here while in Baltimore, your credentials as a librarian of any type will be revoked.” So wrote a friend upon learning that I would be attending the Special Libraries Association’s annual conference in Baltimore, Maryland, last week. “Here” was the George Peabody Library. The Peabody Library appears on many lists of most …
Thursday marked one month since the North York van attack on April 23, 2018. As someone who works and lives in the area (and grew up here), it was heartening to see the community come together after this abhorrent and shocking event.
So reads the text of the Ontario Historic Plaque at the Mnjikaning Fish Weirs (or Fish Fence), at the Atherley Narrows near Orillia, Ontario. Last week while traveling for work, my colleague (i.e. employer) very kindly indulged my historic-plaque-collecting mania by making an unplanned stop at the Weirs on our way out of town. This …
My friend Giles Orr took some gorgeous photos of our visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario’s YAYOI KUSAMA: INFINITY MIRRORS exhibition (in Toronto through May 27, 2018). Enjoy. https://www.gilesorr.com/blog/infinity-mirrors.html More here: https://www.gilesorr.com/photography/201804/
