by Thordis Simonsen | Apr 4, 2016
Minnesota Public Radio’s Writer’s Almanac reported, on 17 March 2016, that the National Gallery of Art opened in Washington, D.C. on that date in 1941, four years after financier and collector Andrew W. Mellon formally bequeathed his entire collection, which he had...
by Thordis Simonsen | Aug 22, 2015
As you might know, I am renovating and adding onto a small “accessory building” on the property I purchased almost two-and-a-half years ago in downtown Salida. The first stage of the building project felt like riding in a rattletrap around potholes on an unpaved road...
by Thordis Simonsen | May 16, 2015
In Salida yesterday, when I was waiting for the concrete truck to arrive for the Annex cellar-wall pour, I ducked into neighboring Book Haven bookstore to get out of a light rain. While scanning the titles on the shelves, I noticed Lawrence Durrell’s Justine, which I...
by Thordis Simonsen | Aug 31, 2014
Seventeen months ago, I signed the deed to 124 East 2nd Street in Salida, Colorado (see 20 March 2013 post). Located in the town’s historic district, the property I purchased includes a main building dating to sometime between 1888 and 1890, and an accessory building...
by Thordis Simonsen | Mar 21, 2013
Yielding to impulses and yearnings that always seemed inexplicable to me at the time, I photographed, I wrote, I painted, I engaged in stonework. I traveled without map or preconceived destination. Perhaps this explains why, after hearing it, I forgot about the...
by Thordis Simonsen | Oct 23, 2012
To reach the front door of my house in Elika, Greece, I must pass through a narrow opening between the upper corner of the building and the end of a stone wall I raised to demarcate what has come to feel like a scared precinct on a hill. Late one afternoon some two...
