Yes folks, it’s been a long time coming but the day has arrived for me to start blogging again! (Cue balloons and ticker tape parade—and on a side note, do you remember when you first discovered that blogging was a verb? Did you spit out your pour over coffee and swear to leave the internet forever? How did that work out for you?)
Some people left their heart in San Francisco. As for me, I left my heart AND my blog in Paris, back in 2008, after living there for six years (and having my career based there for seven years before that). I’d only “blogged” (there’s that throat-clogging word again) for a year or two, but I had come to love the process, a sort of cross between keeping a journal and writing a letter to a good friend with a sense of humor (both activities I love), along with the thrilling ability to add photos and edit on the spot. If you’re curious, the blog was called My Glamourous Life in Paris—and yes, I used the British spelling of glamourous, because that’s how I roll, and no, I’m not going to provide a link because if you’re really curious you can go find it yourself. I can’t do everything for you!
And anyway, that was then, this is now. There has been so much water under the bridge since then that I think the bridge has actually washed away and I’m waiting for an infrastructure grant to build a new one. But meanwhile my fingers are itching to type about little bits and baubles of life in the studio*, and share them with you, dear Reader with a capital R, and so let us begin.
First of all, you’re probably wondering about the title of this post, and what is that weird bottle in the picture? I won’t go into enormous detail at this point (I’m saving it for my next book project, an historical novel!), but Henry K. Wampole was, indeed, my great-grandfather, a chemist from Philadelphia, and this was one of the many “tonic stimulants” that his company sold (until he was found dead in the East River and his partners took over…hence the riches to rags situation, more on that when I write the book!). I found this image on the internet, and there are plenty more—again, if you are curious, just type in Wampole Pharmaceuticals, or Wampole’s Cough Syrup, or Wampole’s Cod Liver Oil Supplement, and you’ll be treated to a cornucopia of late 1800s and early 1900s images and text, as well as some modern images and video too, because guess what? “Wampole’s” is still a company, in Canada and South America last I looked, and though I have nothing whatsoever to do with their current incarnation, I still find it fun and funny to be connected even if only by name to vitamin and health formula products, especially considering my lifelong interest in magic elixirs and potions to change me into someone new and hopefully better.
Which brings me back to this blog. What is it? My admittedly vague idea is to provide a “tonic stimulant” of sorts, a “magic elixir” for the brain and for the eye, something you can look at and momentarily forget some of your troubles and maybe learn something new or at the very least, be entertained. Since let’s face it, most of those tonics and elixirs, both then and now, are nothing but placebos, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have a placebo than a poke in the eye, and so, herewith, I offer you my perfected tasteless blog for your perusal, and if it ends up curing what ails you, even for a small fraction of an hour, then I will consider my work here done.
*among the bits and baubles will be: reflections on art, writing, teaching, and the creative process, along with lots of colorful pics!