PODCAST · arts
The Solace Project
by Carrie Rebora Barratt
Art and Nature change my mind. We’ll reckon with America, talking about paintings that capture complex stories of the past. I find solace in close looking, rethinking, revealing early America. Listen in. carriereborabarratt.substack.com
Episodes
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The Solace Project
Look For the past few years, I have wanted to write about memory and its loss. My mother’s memory failed toward the end of her life. I have always wondered whether that loss was somehow tied to grief. My father, her husband, died, and very soon afterward her son, my brother, died suddenly and...
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The Solace Project
This past week at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, I delivered a lecture on the topic of Art, Nature, and Well-being in Museums, pure joy to see a packed audience, so much interest in this topic. A museum colleague said that she came because I was speaking her love language. I started by posing…
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The Solace Project
As a child, I learned history by arranging and rearranging little figures. As a curator, I learned history by arranging and rearranging works of art in galleries. This week, I am packing my studio in Putnam Valley, New York, the last part of the move to Chicago. I have been looking again at my...
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The Solace Project
The Solace Project Looking Closely A practice of attention and grace Today my practice of looking and paying attention takes me from deer to squirrel, allowing me to think again about a particular painting of a boy by the American painter John Singleton Copley, one that I spent a tons of time on...
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The Solace Project #35
Dear Friends, Oh yes, while the pandemic gave me and so many others hours at home to research and write, doesn’t it feel that getting out into the world makes time evaporate? I’m not complaining, not my style—just yesterday I was talking to a neighbor here in New York about the exquisite beauty…
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The Solace Project #34
Dear Friends, I went to the Whitney Museum’s exhibition of Jasper Johns’ work a few weeks ago and haven’t stopped thinking about the flag paintings. Maybe it’s because my friend Stefanie--who goes to exhibitions like it’s her job, seeking out the popular and the complex, the mainstream and the...
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The Solace Project #34
Dear Friends, I went to the Whitney Museum’s exhibition of Jasper Johns’ work a few weeks ago and haven’t stopped thinking about the flag paintings. Maybe it’s because my friend Stefanie--who goes to exhibitions like it’s her job, seeking out the popular and the complex, the mainstream and the...
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The Solace Project #32
Hi friends, It's been awhile since I've posted, at least a few weeks. One thing I’ve learned from Substack the platform on which I write and record this blog is to be consistent with my posts so that you open the emails and come back week after week. Apologies that I've been inconsistent of late...
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The Solace Project #31
Hello Friends, I have been thinking alot about close looking that I’ve been writing about for weeks and realize that my close looking, even as it connects to solace, is largely grounded in my training as an art historian. I’m looking, but as a step to research and investigation of the work of…
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The Solace Project #30
Dear Friends, And now, about that squirrel…. Over the course of the past three weeks in residence in Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, where I held the space for scholars in the Tyson Think Tank, my focus on the squirrel in Copley’s portrait of Frances Deering...
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The Solace Project #29
Dear Friends, Greetings again from Bentonville, Arkansas, at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, where I am immersed in the Tyson Think Tank. And also enjoying the fruits of warm summer in the heartland, which means hen of the woods mushrooms, peaches, tomatoes, corn, art, nature, and…
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The Solace Project #28
Dear Friends, I write from Bentonville, Arkansas, near Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, where I will be living and learning for the next three weeks as the leader of the Tyson Think Tank. Last week, I said I would tell you all about my trip down here, a road trip through the midwest,...
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The Solace Project #27
Dear Friends, Here’s the thing about looking closely: we can get literally to the nub of things. This week I had a few ideas about what I would write today, and then came the most fascinating letter from Christina Vida, the curator of collections at the Valentine Museum in Richmond. She was…
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The Solace Project #24
Dear Friends, Will you all mind terribly if this week I talk about swimming instead of art. Or maybe the art of swimming? As I prepare for the Tyson Think Tank this August at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, I’m reading critical theory, audience response theory, approaches to anti-racism,...
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The Solace Project #23
Dear Friends, The painting called Heddy by Ed Paschke took my breath away when I approached the South Bend Museum of Art a few weeks ago. On approach, I say, because the image is on the banner on the front of the museum, welcoming all in a boldly inclusive hello.You may have heard that I’m here…
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The Solace Project #22
Dear Friends, I’m thinking a lot about how complex holidays have become or always were. We have reframed these days-off into rituals that have little or nothing to do with the origin stories. My favorite might be David Sedaris’ hysterical French class conversation about Easter, Jesus Shaves, in...
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The Solace Project #20
Hello Friends, Happy Father’s Day, to those of you who are fathers or have fathers, which means all of us. I woke up this morning wondering how I could write about Sir Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces on this day, how does this picture possibly relate to…
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The Solace Project #19
Dear Friends, Today, back to Philadelphia, instead of moving on, moving in. Back to the portrait of Anne Willing Bingham because my good friend Elle Shushan pointed out a few things in response to last week’s post. First, I had no idea that Anne Bingham was the model for the draped bust image on...
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The Solace Project #18
Dear Friends, Today, to Philadelphia, the so-called City of Brotherly Love, to visit the great museum there and look at portraits of two women, Anne Willing Bingham and Juana Ines de la Cruz, lives that were different and alike, hanging in galleries separate but pulled together by the…
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The Solace Project #17
Dear Friends, This week, a close look at the stunning portrait of Margaret Kemble Gage at the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, this time with feeling. When he painted it in 1771, John Singleton Copley wrote to his brother: “It is I think, beyand Compare the best Lady’s portrait I ever Drew.”...
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The Solace Project #16
Hello Friends, Today we walk to Boston to visit Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Izard, yes Ralph pronounced “Rafe,” in a portrait by Copley that could take a lifetime to examine and discern. We won’t take that long, it’s much too nice out to spend too much time, but a close look will be so rewarding, I…
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The Solace Project #15
Hello Friends, Today we’ll talk about a provocative portrait of Sarah Sargent Allen, painted by John Singleton Copley in 1763, the provocation being her gaze, her behavior in her picture, her relationship with her husband, Nathaniel Allen, insofar as we can gauge from their two portraits. I hear...
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The Solace Project #14
Dear Friends, For Mother’s Day, let’s go to The Huntington in beautiful San Marino, California, to look at Ralph Earl’s portrait of Mary Anna Boardman with her son, William. First of all, Happy Mothers Day to all of us who are mothers and all of us who have mothers and all of us who take care of...
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #13
I’m celebrating Mother’s Day a week early and again next week. Today, let’s talk about a mama from late seventeenth century Boston and learn a bit about her life through her portrait at the Worcester Art Museum, a picture always tells a thousand words. Be well, Carrie Get full access to The…
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #12
This week peace treaties that are never really finished, a group of men who didn’t like one another, and Benjamin West’s accurate non-finito portrayal of a treaty that was done before it even began. Westward Ho! Be well, Carrie Get full access to The Solace Project at...
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #11
Today, the Hero’s Journey of George Berkeley and John Smibert, who had to go all the way to Italy to meet, and all the way to America to find their way home. Be well, Carrie Get full access to The Solace Project at carriereborabarratt.substack.com/subscribe
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #9
Happy Easter if you celebrate it, this week I’m taking a bit of a break, drove to Chicago to visit my mother and want to tell you about two very wonderful paintings by her. Be well, Carrie Get full access to The Solace Project at carriereborabarratt.substack.com/subscribe
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #7
Today, 19th century cooking with Mark Bittman, helping me look closely at a painting by Lilly Martin Spencer, the finest female artist in America. Get full access to The Solace Project at carriereborabarratt.substack.com/subscribe
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #5
Today, we’re going to late 18th century Baltimore, a visit to see Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming as painted by Charles Willson Peale, fruits, flowers, outdoors, a huge parrot, and an erotic telescope. Be well, Carrie Get full access to The Solace Project at...
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #4
This week, let’s skate with Gilbert Stuart and William Grant on the Serpentine in London. Grant said “it’s a much better day for skating than for sitting for one’s portrait.” I’d say it’s almost always a better day to be outside than to be sitting. Warmly, Carrie Get full access to The Solace...
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #1
Today an introduction to the podcast, what is The Solace Project, and why is Hannah Winthrop holding a piece of fruit in her portrait by John Singleton Copley? Click the handy link to listen in “podcasts” and all of my audio will show up in a handy list. Be well, Carrie Get full access to The...
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #3
Happy Birthday, George. Today I’ll talk about lies and myths, cherries, Grant Wood and Mason Locke Weems, both in the business of giving a president to remember. Until next week, keep walking, visit a museum, look closely with curiosity and courage Carrie Get full access to The Solace Project at...
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #2
Hannah Fayerweather Winthrop, a colonial woman with a garden of stone fruit, has much to tell us about love, marriage, death, independence and friendship. Get full access to The Solace Project at carriereborabarratt.substack.com/subscribe
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The Solace Project Podcast Episode #10
Today, a flower girl—not the kind that precedes the bride in a wedding. I’ll tell you about the language of flowers, the oldest profession, and artistic ambition. Be well, Carrie Get full access to The Solace Project at carriereborabarratt.substack.com/subscribe
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Art and Nature change my mind. We’ll reckon with America, talking about paintings that capture complex stories of the past. I find solace in close looking, rethinking, revealing early America. Listen in.
carriereborabarratt.substack.com
HOSTED BY
Carrie Rebora Barratt
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Solace Project have?
The Solace Project currently has 34 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Solace Project about?
Art and Nature change my mind. We’ll reckon with America, talking about paintings that capture complex stories of the past. I find solace in close looking, rethinking, revealing early America. Listen in. carriereborabarratt.substack.com
How often does The Solace Project release new episodes?
The Solace Project has 34 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Solace Project?
You can listen to The Solace Project on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Solace Project?
The Solace Project is created and hosted by Carrie Rebora Barratt.
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