Letter 20: An artist, a math game, and my favorite mixing bowl.
January 2024
Notes from Me
First, Happy New Year to all!
Going forward, I plan to publish this newsletter bi-monthly (every two months). I’ll aim to publish posts on March 1st, May 1st, July 1st, September 1st, and November 1st). I hope this is sustainable for me, affording me more time to collect and distill ideas worth sharing. Thank you for coming along with me, and I look forward to sharing 2024 with you!
Reading: A few months back, I read a biography of artist Henry Ossawa Tanner: Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual, Biography by author Marcus C. Bruce. Tanner was an American painter who lived from 1859-1937.
Tanner’s life story (from frail child to modest yet trailblazing international artist) is interesting, but learning about the principles that guided him made me respect him even more. Bruce’s exploration into the philosophy that shaped Tanner’s life decisions is illuminating. Here are a couple of quotes from the biography that I wrote in my journal:
On racial classification:
“Tanner resisted racial classifications all of his life, in large measure because of the false assumptions, stereotypes and consequences that followed from such ideas. He challenged the notion that a person of African descent could not paint, producing over 400 canvases during his lifetime. He contested the idea that a certain style of painting, in this case, black genre painting, was the only means by which he could, or should, be allowed to communicate” (p.14)
On the “exercise of the imagination":
”By defining the terms by which he lived, Tanner engaged in the most fundamental human endeavor, the exercise of his imagination. It bound him to people from different backgrounds, cultures, and nations and made him more fully aware of his own humanity. It was also the inspiration for his faith and his extraordinary capacity to imagine and paint a world in which encounters between the human and divine were still possible. Most important of all, Tanner’s life and work bear witness to the possibility of transcendence: to simultaneously living within, which rising above the arbitrary social and cultural boundaries of the world. Tanner’s talent resided in his tireless response to the call to re-imagine human experience in ways that unite rather than divide human beings” (p. 180)
Writing Elsewhere: Last month, Ivana Greco of The Home Front, interviewed me in her series about mothering and homemaking. I was so encouraged by the other six interviewees in the series. Go read their posts (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6) and check out the comment sections.
With the Boys
Playing: I first learned about Tiny Polka Dot in Catherine’s How We Homeschool newsletter several months ago. I bought it in September 2023 and we have used it almost every weekday since then. I haven’t begun to plumb the depths of the games we could be doing with this card set. We have used it mostly as a way for my 4-year-old son to practice recognizing numbers in differently arranged sets (we like to play Hungry Numbers). We also use it to play Dot 5 Memory. My 6 and 7-year-old sons often join in as well. As someone who was rarely confident in my math skills growing up, I’ve been eager to find ways to bring quantitative thinking into conversations and play with my boys. This card deck has given me some accessible tools to that end. The cards are also durable and a good size for small hands. Highly recommend!
In the Kitchen
Equipment: There are two pieces of kitchen equipment I have used for a few years now and I’d like offer a nod to them here: a mixing bowl and a paring knife. The bowl is an unfussy, lightweight, and durable mixing bowl, for holding bread dough as it rises, housing BBQ chips on a picnic table, coating veggies with oil and spice before I shuffle them onto a cookie sheet, storing cold potato salad, whipped egg whites, etc. Its uses are seemingly inexhaustible.
I like this slim yet sturdy paring knife for slicing through things that require precision, like peppers, strawberries, and grape tomatoes.
The mixing bowl and knife are not flashy, but they consistently improve my day-to-day and I commend them to you.
Small Joy
Sparkling mineral water over ice (from my dad’s ice machine).
Until next time,
Susie
P.S. If you’re in the market for a goal tracker, I have use Elise Joy’s daily tracker the last few years (marking little habits like drinking water, exercising, and reading my Bible). While Elise will soon be shifting offline (which I applaud), you can still sign up for her newsletter and get a free download of her 2024 Daily Goal Tracker here.
So glad you’re all enjoying Tiny Polka Dot, I think it’s such a good math tool. Also I love a habit tracker, and have been wanting a good paring knife for years. The perfect post for me! Happy new year Susie!