5 Books, Why We Love Self-Portraits, Plus Seafood for the Holidays & Cute Cooper Christmas Photos
Monthly Vibes December 2024
Hi. Happy holidays, and welcome new pARTakers. This is Monthly Vibes, where I share art, book, and food inspiration on the third Sunday of each month. I want to share a personal note, as usual, since not everyone here is on socials where I’ve already shared this news, and this is BIG news worth sharing: my latest cancer scans were NED (no evidence of disease), and my oncologist moved my scans from every four months to six. I’m coming up on two years since my last surgery. Ten years is the magic timeframe. We’re pretty happy here, as you can imagine. If you’re new here (and there are many of you, thanks!), you can read how cancer interrupted my seafood cookbook and speaking career if you are interested.
Ps. On a whim, two days before auditions, I applied to a community theater production of Noël Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit. My 1-2 minute monologue for the audition was The Yoga Fart by Gabriel Davis. Watch below.
Pss. I accepted the part of Ruth Condomine.
Blithe Spirit (from Goodreads)
“An insane farce that is also uproarious.” — NY Times
“I will ever be grateful for the almost psychic gift that enabled me to write Blithe Spirit in five days during one of the darkest years of the war.” - Noel Coward. Written in 1941, Blithe Spirit remained the longest-running comedy in British Theatre for years. Plotted around the central role of one of Coward's best-loved characters, a medium Madame Arcati. Coward's play is a spirited, farcical charade about a man with two wives, one dead and another alive.
Tickets: Glema Mahr Center for the Arts, Dinner Theater, Feb 14-16, 2025.
Also, this letter may appear truncated in your inbox, so please read to the bottom for a special offer.
Maureen xo
BOOKS
I’ll admit, lately, my reading concentration has been a crapshoot. You too? With the world spinning on madness with a heavy dose of billionaire-itis, it’s more important than ever to stay calm and say f**k off at every chance. Oh, jk, what we need more than ever is to turn to art and culture and take a deep dive into books, which are some of the best forms of escapism. I usually read memoirs, but lately, I’ve been looking for something different, and that came in the form of a clever little hardback that has been around for a while—since 1814, to be exact. Author and botanical painter Patrick Syme published Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours in 1814, followed by a second edition in 1821. Werner (1749-1817) was an eminent mineralogist and geologist. Who better for Syme to collaborate with to make a book?
The jacket cover, on the bottom third of the book, reads, “The book Charles Darwin used to describe colours in nature on his HMS Beagle voyage.” Each colour or tint is “assigned” to an animal, vegetable, or mineral. For instance, Indigo blue can be found on the throat of a Blue Titmouse, the stamina of a single purple anemone, and blue copper ore. The book describes 110 colours, and I’m tempted to draw and paint the subjects to kick off a 2025 watercolor journal, though even to me, that sounds daunting. I have yet to create a word or phrase for 2025, a practice I started in 2014 to help set the tone for the new year, but I know I’ll have an art theme.
Why is this book relevant for artists? And why would you want it to take up premium space on your shelf?
Color mixing is one of the hardest things for a beginner artist to grasp. Another is sketching, and yet another is controlling the water on the paper and in the brush bristles. Who said art was easy? Nobody. But this little book is a terrific companion for your art table if you want to paint accurate nature art or are interested in history or color science.
How did I find this book?
While reading another book, of course! In Charlotte McConaghy's novel Once There Were Wolves, a story about twins, secrets, and rewilding wolves in the highlands of Scotland, the character Inti mentions Werner’s book as she attempts to understand her world. This page-turner is a gripping cli-fi thriller and love story. For 272 pages, you will forget about the chaos of our world.
It goes without saying, but I will — I highly recommend these complementary books.
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I’ve always enjoyed Billy Collins's poetry for its casual everydayness punctuated within a larger context. His latest collection, Water, Water, does not disappoint. Collins has twelve poetry collections and was Poet Laureate of the US from 2001 to 2003. I fell in love with his work in 2011 at the Key West Literary Society’s annual conference. That year, the conference topic was food, and then I was in the budding stages of writing about food, specifically seafood. Collins read his famous food poem The Fish, Ballistics (2008) on stage at the San Carlos Theater, a gorgeous historic building in the heart of downtown Key West on Duval Street. The Fish coincidentally also includes a mention of Pittsburgh, my hometown. Collins had me hook, line, and sinker. You can read The Fish on The Writers’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor (with permission). Also, if you have a Masterclass subscription, I recommend checking out Collins’s course, Billy Collins Teaches Reading and Writing Poetry.
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Fiction on my Kindle:
There, There, by Tommy Orange. His Substack is a gem, along with his latest Spotify ambient sound soundtrack for writers.
The Body in Question, by Jill Ciment (thanks
for tipping me off to this book, which was reviewed by .)Intermezzo, by Sally Rooney
What are you reading? Please share your favorite books in the comment section.
ART
I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. ~ Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
Of Freida Kahlo’s 143 bold and vibrant paintings, 55 are self-portraits, making her one of history's most prolific and essential self-portrait artists. Kahlo’s self-portraits may not even be the most popular in history. Think van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889), who himself painted 30 self-portraits in four years, and Picasso’s self-portraits that he painted from the age of 15 to 90. Norman Rockwell’s iconic self-portrait comes to mind as well. Modernist Andy Warhol and Yayoi Kusuma’s self-portraits are exceptional and hugely popular. But Freida captured our hearts and attention worldwide with her trademark unibrow, bold colors, and stories of pain, endurance, and love for her family and country.
Whether you prefer Renaissance art, modern art, or something in between, all self-portraits have one thing in common: they succinctly show the artist’s life through their chosen medium or voice. Voice is the essence that makes a piece of work recognizable. Voice can be distilled into the artist's chosen medium (oils, acrylic, watercolor, mixed media, sculpture, photography, collage, or textile). After you recognize an artist’s style, it’s easier to identify who the artist is in a self-portrait. When you look at a surreal painting, you might think of Dali. Pop art, Andy Warhol, or Keith Haring. Banksy is another artist with a distinct voice. Freida too!
Voice is critical for storytelling, whether it’s a piece of art, a poem, or a story in a book, which is why teachers, coaches, and masters of the profession encourage students to “find their voice.” But what does finding your voice mean?
It’s hard to define because voice is a set of parameters used to convey emotion. It is as unique as a fingerprint. It can be thought of as style, not in the fashion sense but rather in how one interprets feelings on the canvas.
Self-portraits are not only for artists with a brush and palette of paint. If you follow my socials, you know I’m a fan of selfies. Like Kahlo, when I was sick, I had no problem recording my hair loss and cachexia or wasting syndrome with selfies. I wasn’t painting at the time, so I used my mobile device to record my life during my cancer journey. Is a photography selfie a self-portrait? Absolutely. One of the most iconic photographers of our time, Diane Arbus, did an entire collection of self-portraits.
But more interestingly, we love self-portraits, whether we’re the observer, the artist, or both. First, why does an artist create a self-portrait? There are numerous reasons, including artist development, introspection, a personal statement, reflecting on a historical moment, or creating an artistic legacy.
While much of my early art career (the last four years) was focused on nature and wildlife, I have been leaning more toward drawing and painting women. My Girl on Fire series is a quasi-self-portrait series born out of a desire to do something bold, using red as the vehicle. Even though The Girl on Fire series doesn’t share a physical likeness to me, each interprets my life’s challenges.
Self-portraits portray humanity at its core, where the artist is brave enough to be vulnerable and lay one’s soul bare and tell the world, “This is me. This is who I am.”
I’m working on more representational likenesses in portraits. To learn more, I enrolled in two online painting courses:
Painting a Portrait of a Historical Woman (Freida Kahlo and Amelia Earhart), Fiona Di Pinto, Etchr Studio
Portraits Made Simple, Nicki Traikos, Life I Design
Do you love or loathe self-portraits? Do you have a favorite? I’d love to know.
FOOD
It wasn’t until after I started distributing my 100-book cookbook collection to free little libraries that I realized I didn’t own one cookbook by Ina Garten, aka Barefoot Contessa. Not one. She wrote fifteen! Ina is the darling of the culinary world and owns a media empire. She makes cozy chic and oozes charm. If, during the COVID pandemic, you missed Ina’s hysterical videos with her bird bath-sized martini cocktails, then here you go. In April 2024, Ina’s memoir came out: Be Ready When the Luck Happens. Naturally, she’s out, and about, or rather, people are flocking to her, as heard in this podcast episode on The Daily, where host Michael Barbaro interviews her in her barn for a Thanksgiving special, where she shares a recipe for ham glaze (think sweet and sour) and a Cranberry martini you didn’t know you needed. I have her memoir on my Libby waitlist. If you have a favorite Ina recipe or story, please share it in the comments!
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Once upon a time, not too long ago, my life was devoted to seafood: selling, cooking, eating (naturally), developing recipes, and speaking to answer the question, what is sustainable seafood, and why should you care? I’m not going to lie; I miss that chapter of my life, so when I can’t stop thinking about those times, I head to the Recipes page on my website. Even if you don’t make any recipes, I’m sure you’ll be inspired to cook something fresh and delicious or enjoy the pretty food photography, which is also all my work. Dive in. Note: most recent seafood recipes are salmon-heavy because, in 2016, I wrote the cookbook Salmon from Market to Plate: When You Want to Eat Salmon that is Good for You and the Oceans.
I have an offer: I have twelve first-edition soft-cover copies. $20 includes shipping in the US and a watercolor bookmark. Hit reply now; I’d love to personalize this lovely little book for you or the salmon-lover in your life. It’s part narrative (the why), plus twenty everyday recipes and ten chef recipes, with full-color photography and a shopping resources section. FYI, the e-book is $4.99, and if you have Kindle Unlimited, the e-book is free. Or, if you would rather skip the personalization, you can buy the softcover online.
Okay, my lovely pARTakers,
I appreciate your readership! I know there are many diversions in life, and life is meant to be lived. Our world is busy and noisy, so thank you for being here. If you’re a paid supporter, thank you SO MUCH. If you’d like to be a paid supporter, find out more here or hit the subscribe now button. Note: every issue of pARTake is free, but paid subscribers get awesome art perks. If a subscription isn’t in your budget (I get it; I have a budget, too), and you’d like to hang out and chat more with me, head to the Substack app and find me on Notes, where there are lovely, engaging, and inspiring ongoing conversations about writing, art, culture, and more.
Have a beautiful holiday season. Hug your loved ones, and if you are traveling, stay safe.
Maureen xo
Stay curious. Stay safe. Make an impact.
What makes you so talented Maureen? Every day you surprise me with something else. I wonder if Cooper thinks this way? ✌🏻👍🎄
Contrasts and wow! This is jam packed with greatness! Thank you very much and I hope you have the best holiday season!