The “Gaslight District”
I recently took a walk in the Fraser Street and Grand Avenue area of Cambridge. The area is now known as the "Gaslight District." It will be the new "must visit"…
LOCKDOWN!
Wrongfully convicted! According to Merriam - Webster, lockdown is: the confinement of prisoners to their cells In this case, many of the prisoners are wrongfully convicted. I feel sorry for…
Somebody reduced our heritage to a pile of scrap
Somebody reduced our heritage to a pile of scrap, and that somebody needs to be held accountable. As my father used to like to say, Something stinks in the state…
Silent Night
Christmas in a pandemic. How does an institution like Christmas survive without the traditions we all associate with the festival? Or does it? Preston is a small town in an…
The Astronomer – A portrait by invitation.
September 2019 and I planned on joining my brother, Larry, on his fall colour visit to Algonquin Park. I last went with him in 2016, and the colours were magnificent.…
Halloween in West Galt
This being November 1st means yesterday was Halloween. As I was scrolling through the internet yesterday I came across a post of a neighbourhood right here in Cambridge that was…
The Colonel was invited.
A “Portrait by Invitation” is just as the name suggests a portrait where the subject was invited to sit for the picture. In this earlier blog post I talked about…
Imagine rejecting a Rembrandt.
Early in the decade of the 1660's Rembrandt received a large public commission. Offered initially to Govert Flinck, a student of Rembrandt's Flinck had died only after making a rough…
Rembrandt as an old man (1669). It is said that this was the last self portrait that Rembrandt did, and in fact at the time of his death it was unfinished.
Rembrandt and portraits by invitation
"Almost two-thirds of his entire output consists of portraits of one kind or another --- self-portraits, group portraits, single portraits. And instead of being commissioned, the subjects for most of…
Educational entertainment
You wouldn't think of a drive along the Welland Canal as educational entertainment. I didn't. I avoided the main highways as I drove from Cambridge, toward the Niagara Peninsula. Arriving…