A Rolling Crone

A blog about travel, art, photography and crone power

joanpgage

joanpgage
Location
North Grafton, Massachusetts, USA
Birthday
February 04
Bio
After 40 years as a journalist, I turned 60 and decided to return to my first love--painting, especially portraits of people encountered in my travels to Greece, Mexico, India & Nicaragua. I’ve exhibited my watercolors and photographs in Massachusetts and have some of them on my web site: www.joanpgage.com. My photo book “The Secret Life of Greek Cats” can be purchased on the web site, or on Amazon. I collect antique photographs, including daguerreotypes, and write about how they have introduced me to some fascinating historic figures, such as Elizabeth Keckley, a slave who became Mary Lincoln's dressmaker and confidante. Last year I attended my 50th high school reunion in Edina, Minnesota and I've just turned 70. My husband and I recently reached our 40th anniversary. We have 3 children, now amazing adults, who keep me up to date on technology--although I still haven't mastered texting. It's been a marvelous journey since I was born in 1941, and I can't wait for the next chapter.

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MAY 24, 2012 7:27PM

Amalía Does San Francisco & Wine Country, Part Two


On the second day of her San Francisco visit, Amalía, eight-month-old fashionista, headed for the wineries of the Russian River Valley with Tia Marina at the wheel and Yiayia Joanie and Mommy Eleni completing her posse.
Amalía visited three wineries in all:  first Copa
…

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MAY 23, 2012 2:45PM

Amalía Does San Francisco (Part One)



 Recently People magazine had a page of photos of Suri Cruise, fashion guru of the pre-school set, hitting the hot spots in Manhattan with a stuffed giraffe as her constant escort (although he looks more like a deer to me.)

During the same week, my granddaughter Amalía, eight… Read full post »
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MAY 21, 2012 7:00AM

Found Art: Postage Stamps Celebrate U.S. Poets!

(Please click on the images to see them whole)

It happened on April 21, but I didn’t realize it until I went to the post office recently and learned that the USPS had issued a sheet of stamps immortalizing America’s Twentieth Century Poets.   This made… Read full post »
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MAY 18, 2012 9:00PM

Tots with (Antique) Toys—Boy or Girl?


Favorite Photos Friday
(Click on these photos to enlarge them)

(Pushing the wheelbarrow is John Butler Woodward, Jr., photographed on Dec. 9, 1892, 3 years old.)

While collecting vintage photographs, I’ve always gravitated toward photos of children. Even better are images of children… Read full post »
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MAY 11, 2012 5:25PM

Cheers: Favorite Photos Friday

I'm just back from a delightful stay with daughters Eleni and Marina and granddaughter Amalia in San Francisco (bookended with stays in Manhattan where I am now.)  Eleni was in San Francisco to present her new novel "Other Waters" at Book Passages in the Ferry Building.

Between hiking in the Red…

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MAY 4, 2012 7:00AM

American Gothic-- Favorite Photos Friday



This painting by America Artist Grant Wood is one of the ten most famous paintings in the world and one of the most parodied (along with “The Scream”). Wood painted it in 1930.  First he came upon the Gothic Revival-style house in  Eldon, Iowa, then he used his own… Read full post »
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MAY 1, 2012 7:00AM

May Baskets & May Wreaths


(I posted this last year and am posting it again by popular request. The crazy no-snow winter has changed the sequence of flowers now in bloom--The forsythia is long gone, lilacs are peaking, even clematis is opening, but the idea of May baskets and May wreathes remains the same--glorying in… Read full post »

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APRIL 30, 2012 7:00AM

Found Art: A Walk to Central Park


I’m just back home from a week spent babysitting the adorable #1 granddaughter in Manhattan, and once again I’m reminded why New York is my favorite city in the world (especially in Spring).  Every block  holds surprise glimpses of beauty and art, if you just look.  (L… Read full post »
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APRIL 27, 2012 2:18PM

Men Looking Silly: Favorite Photos Friday




During photography’s infancy – from 1839 up to the Civil War – having your photograph taken was a serious matter that probably occurred only once in your lifetime  You would put on your best clothes, go to the photographer’s studio on a sunny day, sit very still
… Read full post »
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APRIL 25, 2012 7:00AM

Lost Bird: Survivor of Wounded Knee, Betrayed by the White Man



The Story Behind the Photograph

This antique photo is the most expensive and I think the most interesting one in my collection.  It’s an Imperial—which means a giant version of the cabinet card-- and measures  about 7 by 10 inches;  an albumen print mounted on dec
… Read full post »
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APRIL 23, 2012 12:02AM

Found Art: Angels Beneath the Volcano



 Last week, when I read that the volcano of Popocatepetl, known fondly in Mexico as “El Popo”, was producing fire, smoke, lava, ash and loud underground groans, 40 miles southeast of Mexico City, I began to worry about the angels in the churches of Cholula, right below the v… Read full post »
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APRIL 21, 2012 5:48PM

Favorite Photos—Behind the Wheel of the Great Race




When I scanned these two vintage photos from my collection for my “Favorite Photo Friday” post, I thought they were just two amusing scenes of Victorians posing proudly in photographers’ studios behind the wheel of one of those those new-fangled horseless carriages.
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APRIL 18, 2012 4:04PM

Amalía Fashionista – the Easter Parade


Granddaughter Amalía, the self-appointed fashion guru to the pre-potty-trained set, just as Suri Cruise is to the pre-school set, knew that she would have to pull out all the fashion stops during this past Easter season, especially since she celebrated two Easters in two different citi… Read full post »
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APRIL 16, 2012 7:00AM

Found Art: The Diners of Worcester


The city of Worcester (where I live) takes great pride in the city’s architectural landmarks and its contributions to modern civilization. Worcester boasts a number of “famous firsts”, including barbed wire, shredded wheat, the monkey wrench, the first commercial Valentines,… Read full post »
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APRIL 13, 2012 7:00AM

Favorite Photo Friday: Patriotic Kids



 What I love about these three photos is the way the children embody  the attitudes of their three different countries at the time the photos were taken.

Look at these three French siblings photographed in Paris.You can tell they are well-behaved, maybe somewhat stuck-up and very… Read full post »
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APRIL 11, 2012 7:00AM

I’m a What-Kind-of Crone?


                                                          Joanna DeVoe from her website "KickAss Witch"

Never having been given a title any more im… Read full post »
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APRIL 9, 2012 7:00AM

Found Art – A Show of Magical Hands


Not long ago I read that  Sotheby’s is planning to sell  a collection of photographs of hands amassed by businessman Henry Buhl in the 19 years since he paid $75,000 for his first:  a photograph by Alfred Stieglitz of the hands of Georgia O’Keefe.  Sotheby
… Read full post »
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APRIL 6, 2012 7:00AM

Favorite Photos Friday—Religious Kids



 Since the Easter season is here, I thought I’d show you some antique photos from my collection that feature children and religion (I think.)  All three of these are cabinet cards, which were very popular from about 1870 to 1905.  A cabinet card is a photographic print m
… Read full post »
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APRIL 2, 2012 7:00AM

Found Art—The Scraped Walls of Pirgi, Chios


I often write about art painted on exterior walls—forinstance the Murals of the Mission District, San Francisco and the WynwoodWalls in Miami.  I’ve even writtenabout the artistic graffiti of Oaxaca, Mexico.
 But the only place you will find art scraped into the
… Read full post »
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MARCH 30, 2012 7:00AM

Favorite Photo Friday—Balanced Rock





These two photographs came to me separately and so long ago I can’t remember thesource.  They both show touristsposed in front of Balanced Rock, in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs,Colorado.  Both photos are 4.5 by7.5 inches in size and mounted on cardb
… Read full post »
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MARCH 28, 2012 5:21PM

Remembering Sixties Fashions and Mad Men Days


 
                                                                            Megan on Mad
… Read full post »
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MARCH 26, 2012 7:00AM

Found Art – The High Line


You may argue that a park is not art, but in the case of theHigh Line I think you’d agree with me that it is.  It has outdoor sculpture and artistic plantings, ghost signs, viewsof  the Hudson river and even aglimpse of the Statue of Liberty in the distance.
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MARCH 23, 2012 7:00AM

Favorite Photo Friday—A Boy and His Dog



I’m passionate about old photos and like to research somethat I think may be historically important, treating them as a mystery thatmust be solved by examining the clues. When I think I’ve figured one out, I often post “The Story Behind thePhotographâ€, like the ones listed on the right.

B… Read full post »
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MARCH 21, 2012 4:29PM

A Resourceful Mom Writes an eBook Bestseller


 

This is a story about how an intrepid Greek-American mom inAlaska tackled economic problems caused by a family health crisis that forcedher to quit her job.  She did it bypouring her family recipes and her memories of her mother and grandmothers intoa cookbook that she self-publi
… Read full post »
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MARCH 19, 2012 7:00AM

Found Art – The Murals of the Mission District, San Francisco

(Please click on the photos to see them whole.)



Art is all around if we only keep our eyes open to seeit.  So I’m going to try every weekto have a post about “Found Art”, sharing some of the beautiful things Iencounter, often just walking down the street,… Read full post »
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