✮Five Brilliant Things✮
It's all a matter of perspective
Hello,
It’s been a while! But here’s a selection of my recent favourites from other Substack authors. In one way or another, they’re all about perspective: the shifts in understanding we make as we grow up, the ways we can reframe criticism to make rather than break relationships, critical reassessments of female artists, and a different way of tackling homework assignments. Enjoy!
Carissa Potter on calling in rather than calling out
“If it were up to me, I would only ever share good news. I do, however, like repair. I like acknowledgment. I do like connection. I do like feeling understood and cared for.”
“Dear Mrs D, Thank you for your engagement in my education. My interest was piqued by your task, and though I unfortunately won’t be completing it on this occasion, I liked the idea of it, and of you, enough to take a look at any future homework you might set. Please stay in touch.”
Joanna Wolfarth on the radical perspective-shift found in the paintings of Mary Cassatt
“The more I look at Cassatt’s nursing images, the more I see her paintings as love letters from child to mother, the former entirely relaxed and comfortable as themselves, enveloped within the safe embrace of their mother. And, if we dare to suggest an autobiographical element to Cassatt’s work, we could say she is remembering - empathising with - what it felt like to be held by her mother.”
Daisy Buchanan on our complicated relationship with clothes
“Clothes were proof of my value. If I could wear thin clothes, and pass as a thin person, I would be safe. I would have escaped my old self, the fat little girl who wasn’t worth anything. I didn’t understand there was another way to be.”
Lost in the Archives on the under-appreciated Barbara Pym
“Excellent Women was described by the poet John Betjeman in 1952 as ‘a perfect book’, and other critics agreed. ‘We needn’t bring Jane Austen into it,’ wrote the News Chronicle approvingly, ‘but Miss Pym is writing in a great tradition and knows it.’”
Feel free to share your own favourite reads in the comments!
Take care,
Katherine
If you think a friend or loved one would enjoy The Clearing by Katherine May, gift subscriptions are available here | Website | Buy: Enchantment UK /US | Buy: Wintering UK / US | Buy: The Electricity of Every Living Thing UK / US
Barbara Pym!!! She’s fabulous. Can’t remember when I began reading her novels (decades ago?) but i never tire of reading and rereading them. So lovely to see her lauded
Wonderful! Thank you.