The Saunterer

Anne Frank on the goal of living

    Had she lived:

I can’t imagine having to live like Mother, Mrs. Van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!

    (Quoted from page 190 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris Corp., 2001)
    For a brief biography of Anne Frank, click here. For some images of or relating to Anne Frank, click here.

Karl von Frisch on the excellence of bees

    Can you do anything comparable to this? –

That they are able to fly by an indirect route and yet reconstruct the true direction without the aid of ruler, protractor, or drawing-board is one of the most wonderful accomplishments in the life of the bee and indeed in all creation.

    (Quoted from page 121 of Insect Media: An archaeology of animals and technology, by Jussi Parikka. University of Minnesota Press, 2010)
    For a brief autobiography of Karl von Frisch, click here. For images of or relating to Karl von Frisch, click here. For a brief autobiography of Jussi Parikka, click here. For images of or relating to Jussi Parikka, click here.

Oscar Howe on prejudice and art

    The more grounded in the past a culture is, the more it resists the avant-garde. Look at Oscar Howe -- born Joe Creek on the Crow Creek Reservation -- who in 1958 sent his new painting to the Philbrook Museum of Art to be in an exhibition. The curator, Jeanne O. Snodgrass, rejected it from consideration of an award, as “not Indian.” Writing her, Howe commented on work that departs from the accustomed:

Who ever said that my paintings are not in the traditional Indian style has poor knowledge of Indian Art indeed. There is much more to Indian Art than pretty, stylized pictures. . . . Every bit of my paintings is a true studied fact of Indian paintings. Are we to be held back forever with one phase of Indian painting, with no right for individualism, dictated to as the Indian always has been, put on reservations and treated like a child, and only the White Man knows what is best for him?

    (Quoted from page 37 of “Oscar Howe and the Transformation of Native American Art," by Mark Andrew White, American Indian Art Magazine, Vol. 23, No. 1, Winter 1997.)
    For a brief biography of Oscar Howe, click here. For images of Oscar Howe and some of his paintings, click here.