Bouquets and Brickbats

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To Avi Curtis and Liam Ireland of Waukee, Iowa, who went trick-or-treating last year only to notice a bowl of candy outside one of the houses being stolen by a group of young thieves. Using the candy they had collected for themselves, they refilled the empty bowl and then stood outside the house and distributed it to their fellow trick-or-treaters. Liam explained that he had lost his brother to suicide ten months earlier, on Christmas Eve, and his brother had taught him that acts of kindness were important. “He did everything for me, so I show other people kindness,” he explained. To rock legend Michael McDonald, formerly of the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, who took the time to meet 11-year-old superfan Paisley Gardner, invited her to a show in Nebraska, and then winked at her onstage. Asked what she loves about McDonald, Paisley identified the qualities of his famous voice: “It’s very, very wispy and sounds like an angel.” To everyone who donated to Victorville Helping Hands and …

Report

The Cleopatra of the Race-Track

Works by pioneering 19th century African American artist appear in strange places

Marble bust of Christ recovered from closet in Scottish castle: ’Old Arrowmaker’ recovered from Québec City junk shop.

Historical Society of Forest Park, Ill. preserves statue of Nilotic Queen using unorthodox techniques

By Isabel Vincent

Edmonia Lewis has faded so far into obscurity that, until a few years ago, experts had no idea when the African American and indigenous sculptor died, where she was buried, or what had happened to the more than 100 marble pieces she created. The handful of working Lewis sleuths — the academics, conservators, and art aficionados who have devoted their careers to tracking her work — have only recently uncovered some of the most basic details of her life and death. Lewis belonged to a coterie of American expatriate women sculptors in Rome, where she went to live in 1865, and never married. She was born in East Greenbush, New York, to an Ojibwe mother and Haitian father. An older half brother, Samuel Lewis, struck it rich in the California gold rush and financed her art studies at Oberlin College. Lewis, who had faced intense discrimination and a near-lynching at Oberlin after she was accused of poisoning two white housemates (she was acquitted at trial in 1863), enjoyed success and …

Bouquets and Brickbats

American Glossary

The Cleopatra of the Race-Track