Sprigged & Spotted

Category: Reflections

  • Tools and Trade Offs: Keeping Artificial Intelligence in its Proper Place [Creating without AI]

    Tools and Trade Offs: Keeping Artificial Intelligence in its Proper Place [Creating without AI]

    Artificial intelligence is NOT used to write this blog.

    Valuing the Process

    Sometimes a thing worth doing… is worth doing the slow, handmade way. This blog is one of those things. I do not use any chatbots or other AI tools to formulate ideas or craft my sentences. Such shortcuts would completely miss the point.

    This blog demonstrates a track record of valuing slow creative endeavors.

    I run on lots of coffee (usually the drip kind with a little half & half and sugar) and the wonder of discovery. Throughout my life, I have reveled in creative work that takes time and thoughtfulness. Although this website shares just a tiny taste of my lifetime of projects, several examples of my deliberative, attentive endeavors (and writing about them) currently exist as blog posts as on this very platform:

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  • Snarky skincare advice for backwoods women [Mid-19th Century Sunbonnets, Part 1]

    Snarky skincare advice for backwoods women [Mid-19th Century Sunbonnets, Part 1]

    Why did 19th century women wear their sun bonnets, or not?

    Women who don’t wear bonnets…

    • make themselves “as rough and coarse as ever [they] can, by way of being independent.”
    • look– at age 26– “like a runnet* bag that had hung six weeks in the chimney corner”
    • make themselves “too ugly for any use except scaring the crows off the corn”

    …according to a Missouri newspaper column published in 1849.

    * A rennet-bag is the fourth stomach of a ruminant (cow), a traditional natural source of enzymes for making cheese.

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  • Grinning Pumpkins: Why Jack-O’-Lanterns are the best part of Halloween

    Grinning Pumpkins: Why Jack-O’-Lanterns are the best part of Halloween

    Jack O’Lanterns might be my favorite part of the American tradition of Halloween. Perhaps this is because I don’t have much of a sweet tooth or love of the horror genre, but I genuinely enjoy carving pumpkins and seeing my neighbors’ creations. Walking down a neighborhood street, following clumps of Trick-or-Treaters, and seeing the flickering faces of orange orbs adorning doorsteps and pathways makes the effort worthwhile.

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  • Advent of Photography: Portraits for the Rest of Us

    Advent of Photography: Portraits for the Rest of Us

    What if you had no photos of anyone you’ve ever known?

    Lately, I have been browsing various museums and historical society websites in search of portraits from the earliest age of photography. Whether they are daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, or albumen, they captivate me.

    The names of so many of the sitters have been lost to time, but their images persist. Their bones or ashes have long been returned to dust, yet these were the first so-called common people with the ability to preserve a version of their corporeal form.

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  • Ye Olde Nail Clippers: How did people trim their nails in the past?

    Ye Olde Nail Clippers: How did people trim their nails in the past?

    I love the ordinary.

    What could be more ordinary than clipping your nails?

    Many a time have I pondered the difficulty of such a mundane task for people with no access to handy, purpose-built nail clippers, either in the past or the present. Thus, I was delighted to come across this huge, centuries-old painting by Dutch master, Rembrandt (or one of his pupils) of an aged woman tending to her finger nails. Though, I am no art historian, I have always been drawn to the painters of old who shined a light on the common folk rather than just the wealthy. The Bible itself includes a reference to nail grooming, though without mention of a specialized tool.

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