RMW Ramblings

  Stations of the Flag Apollo 11 Our last stop on the Stations of the Flag is a quarter of a million miles away, on the surface of the Moon.  On July 20, 1969. Several hours after  the Eagle had landed, many of us watched on television as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag on the surface of the Moon.  This iconic photo, showing the flag with Buzz Aldrin, was taken by Neil Armstrong.   The surface was too hard for the flag assembly to get a firm purchase and there was concern that it would topple over on camera.  It did survive, but did fall from the blast of the lunar module's launch to rendezvous  with the command module. Five other US flags have been planted on the Moon, all now bleach white from solar radiation.  Conspiracy proponents have claimed that the landing was faked in a studio, citing perceived irregularities in the flag's display.  Unlike some other parts of the American Flag mythos, the planting of the Apol...

  Leonardo Dreams of Flight Today is Leonardo Di Vinci's 571st birthday.  In Leonardo Dreams of Flight I showed him with his thoughts of flight around his head, versions of his notebook sketches.  Airborne gulls circle Florence and its Duomo.

  An Intergalactic Storm & Lear's Storm This morning's news feed brought images from NASA's Webb space telescope.  An image of the Pillars of Creation (astronomers' hyperbolic nomenclature) brought to mind one of my paintings.  Years after a flood from hurricane Isabel devastated our cottage I commemorated our recovery with this painting  of Lear chalanging the storm, "Rage, Blow, Ye Cataracts and Hurricanoes."  Shakespeare's breath, upper right, animates the faces of the storm, who in turn blast Lear and his fool.    Do you see the  faces in this intergalactic dust "storm"?  I reoriented the picture to highlight the similarity.    

  2 August 2021 Blackground Paintings 3 Innovators "Poe Meets Dickens"     In March of 1842 Edgar Allan Poe called on Charles Dickens at the United States Hotel in Philadelphia.   This painting depicts Poe reading from a manuscript to the seated Dickens.   The raven in the upper left connects the two in literature.   Dickens' pet raven, "Grip," was included in his novel Barnaby Grudge in 1841.   The bird died that year and is preserved in a display case in the Rare Books department of the Philadelphia Free Library.   Poe's most famous work, The Raven, appeared in 1845.   Dickens here gestures to the date 1842 Phil ª , the year and place of their meeting, on the book before him.   The gold ornamental bracket partially framing the scene is characteristic of 19th century book binding gilt stamped covers.   I have signed in a monogram I designed in the same spirit. "Saints of Science"   Modern science owes much of its found...