Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Francisca Efgenia Melendez y Durazzo at the Dallas Museum of Art

      One of the charming things for me to experience at a museum is the curiosity that I see in its visitors. Here, my sweet friend uses the magnifying glass to further study one of the works of art at the Dallas Museum of Art's wonderful exhibit, Women Artists in Europe from the Monarchy to Modernism. 

      Drawn to the miniature oil paintings by Francisca Efgenia Melendez y Durazzo (1770 - 1825), I learned that at age twenty, she became an Academic of Merit. Shortly thereafter, she became the artist for the Court of King Charles of Spain. The portraits we viewed at the exhibit show her work painting the members of the king's family. The work is framed together with letters to her requesting certain details, such as "eyes that show more smiling." Though the language written on the letters harks back to the Eighteenth Century, I could still understand what the message said. Spanish is a beautiful language, and having the opportunity to read it gave me an added embellishment to the experience at the Museum. 




     My attempts to photograph the moment a visitor studies a work of art serve to challenge my skills with my camera. With low light and a moving subject, I have to quickly compose after adjusting my settings. This time, I used my X-T3 from Fujifilm with a 35mm lens. I could have made much better images if I had focussed more deeply as a photographer; instead, I focussed on the wonderful exhibit, the wonderful women whose work I viewed and inspired me, which made capturing moments of secondary nature. Sometimes, enjoying the experience, such as this one, can overcome my passion for capturing a beautiful moment. I can feel those times by now, and allow them to wash over me, inspiring me for the future.



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Let Lovely Turn of Phrase Begin

JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.