A throughline in almost all of my work is the idea that objects—especially old ones—serve as tangible links between past and present, giving us a visceral connection to lives lived long before our own. Why does that matter? Maybe it’s enough to say that it’s just plain fun. We love a good historical rabbit hole….

We don’t know what she looked like. It was too early for photography, and she wasn’t of the class which celebrated itself with painted portraits. But picture a face hardened by labor – thousands of hours in cacophonous workshops, eardrums wracked by hammers and skin toasted by fire. It’s a truism that 18th century commerce…

So I hope that for your sake dear reader that you are a Swozzler,But I hope for everybody’s that you’re not.And I also wish that everybody else was a nice amiable Snodgrass too,Because then Life would be just one sweet, harmonious mazurka or gavotte. —”Are you a Snodgrass, Too?”, Ogden Nash This pair of porcelain…

This historically significant portrait captures a remarkable moment in 19th-century First Nations diplomacy and intercultural exchange, vividly embodied in the figure of Edward Seguin. Painted by James Hamilton Shegogue in 1840, the work prominently features traditional dress of the Huron-Wendat Nation, emphasizing Indigenous diplomatic traditions and their engagement with transatlantic cultural figures. As a work…