Home
Welcome to The Sea Pearl, a collection of curiosities, essays, and guiding principles that inspire my life and everything in it.
Art Subjects
Breaking: Get ready. Next issue we’re going international!
If you are interested in art subjects, please check out Art Chowder magazine, a Northwest regional publication which my husband, Melville Holmes, writes for (with help from moi). In this month’s issue (Mar.-Apr. 2021) we cover the amazing work of a PhotoShop colorist from Moscow, Olga Shirnina, who works under the name of Klimbim. You will be amazed to see long dead historical figures, until now appearing only in black-and-white prints, popped up in color. It is a little strange, as if they have risen from their graves and have come back to claim their places in the world’s drama. I am still saying, “Wow!” every time I look at some of the images. This issue we are back on page 30 with : “Black-and-White Turned to Color, Changes of Tide: Bad, Good, Beautiful.
In case you didn’t know, you can read Art Chowder online for free. You can also purchase it at many book shops.
Inspirational Spaces
For me, decorating is all about freedom and idiot-proofing your life, but it’s also about beauty, quiet spaces, and room to dream. If you ever wondered why you can’t achieve an Architectural Digest home no matter how hard you try, perhaps this is why: You really live in your home (unlike those other people whose homes appear in magazines). Additionally, there may be other people in your household who are messy, have aesthetic sensibilities different from yours, or perhaps you move around a bit and what worked in one abode doesn’t work in the next. Decorating Freedom is a practical set of pages I’ve put in the menu above to help you reconcile your busy life with the space you truly inhabit.
Keep Up With Me—If You Can!
As you may know, MeWe is my favorite social media platform because it’s so clean, there are no ads, and it’s not Facebook(!). It is the home of The Sea Pearl group page where I share items of interest that may refresh your soul. (I don’t post many links on this main site in case they go out of date.) Just to give you a foretaste, someone sent me a link the other day to a radio program that blew my socks off. I never listened to Bill McGlaughlin before, but he takes the listener through music in a way that truly informs and educates the ear—and, I swear, it’s a hundred times better than taking a course for credit. You have simply got to hear his March 29 broadcast, “How Strange the Change from Major to Minor, Part I,” where he explains how the Dorian mode came to us from the ancient Greeks. What kind of music do you love? It’s all there. If you prefer quiet inspiration to heated discussions, The Sea Pearl group on MeWe may be the perfect place. (“Calgon, take me away. . .”)
—Memos—
Okay, it’s getting better . . . still learning to work this new (inferior) editing program. It doesn’t seem to have affected the other pages as much as the home page—the one I update most often. Seriously, I haven’t written as much as I’d like about some of the life changes this brain-atrophying technology has forced me into (less machinery/computer time), but one day I hope to. Meanwhile, I will get through this!
