I’ve been fortunate enough to have a partner who supports my creative endeavors and does everything he can to allow me space and time to write weird novels about fertility cults and so I can perform in operas. He’s a mensch. Sam wins the trifecta at the Nice Hippodrome de la Côte d’Azur as her man looks on in disgust c. 2003 There did come a time in recent years though where I felt myself spread too thin. My girls are young and I wanted to be there for them, and even starting

Certain cities ooze an ephemeral quality of “culture” and it can be tricky to explain exactly why. But then other times it’s clear how artistic expression is woven into the fabric of the urban landscape. Montreal is a city that provides a full sensory cultural experience. From murals in every corner to music in every neighborhood, it’s teeming with art. Or a number of public spaces with shared instruments that provide an opportunity to show off and shimmy. Although I’m not ce

Since I’m a newcomer to places like New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, I don’t harbor much of the shame of the colonialist past that many people who were raised in those countries do. As a foreign woman, I’ll happily stumble into places and stories that are verboten to locals. This is how a Maori leader ends up taking me on a tour of the iwi land his grandfather fought to recover in the 1970s during the protest of Bastion Point. This is how a Shinnecock gives me a totem anim

It’s this weird thing that my thoroughly continental childhood had a slight Asian flavor to it, although it’s not something I generally discuss. This influence is due to the fact that my grandparents lived in Manila and Macau during part of my childhood and sent me all sorts of fun things from that part of the world. This was at a time when Asia was still very far away from North America or Europe. Here is a typical childhood photo of me in Paris extolling my like for Hong Ko

I had an auditory flashback whereby I realized why Bowie’s 1971 Life on Mars always felt familiar to me yet not quite right. Because I thought it was my favorite song when I was a kid, but it wasn’t. In fact, it was this French song from 1978 by Hervé Vilard. I think if you listen you can understand my confusion. Not the same, and yet… Nous c’est une illusion qui meurt, D’un éclat de rire en plein coeur Une histoire de rien du tout Comme il en existe beaucoup … For compari

Let’s talk about the muse and how they function in the life of the artist. We all have influences that kick our artistic butts into gear. Growing up with my grandmother Helene‘s paintings I’ve long been fascinated by the literal artist model. I took a painting class in high school where the instructor told me painters tend to add their own features when they paint other people. “If you want to look good, hire a good-looking painter.” When my maternal grandmother lived outside

In every family there is a person that holds the center; around whose gravitational pull the other family members orbit. We refer to them as patriarch or don’t really consider their role until they’ve died and the loosely held lines of the family tree split into new directions. I was lucky as an adult that my eldest sister decided to be such a force for cohesion. If you’ve followed along with our shared story then you know the fractured nature of our father’s relationships an

I do enjoy pulling the celebrity-style vintage photos from my family vault to share with you guys. These are from a photo shoot my mother did in Paris for the opera in the late 1960s. Aren’t they just the most? The living end? But with the umbrella and those buildings it’s all a bit Jacques Tati somehow. #fashion #opera #vintagephotography #Paris #JacquesTati #glamour #France #MariaBaroni #1960s #vintagephotos

The trouble with having such a deep knowledge of my family history is I find I must bite my tongue when my kids speak casually of their interests. I have no desire to bog them down with the weight of our history. When my kid says she’d like to grow up to be a dancer I want to say, “Like your great aunt.” When they learn to ice skate and say they can never do it I want to say, “But your grandmother became quite good at it living outside of Chicago.” When they tell me they love

It’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. You’ll recall I had a grandmother who escaped a concentration camp. In my historical digging I’ve learned of other tantalizing bits of family lore but it seems as though stories are getting mixed together and I am having trouble separating fact from fiction. I learned from my great aunt a while ago that my great-great grandfather’s brother was an owner of Chateau St. Julien. That seems unlikely, as it’s always been owned by famous wine families

I had a fair number of technical difficulties with this entry as the reel-to-reel from 1959 was damaged. You’ll hear some interference despite my best efforts to clean up the audio. In any case, this is an 8-minute interview my grandmother did on talk radio in Chicago in 1959, a mere 17 months after arriving in the United States. It’s delightful to hear her broken English and thick French accent. She’s talking here of her process as a portrait artist as she launched the caree

Palavas-les-Flots is a French seaside resort south of Montpelier. My mother, along with her mother and new stepfather, spent a summer vacation in Palavas while my step-grandfather  enjoyed learning how to use new film equipment. I find this movie of my mother getting ready and then enjoying breakfast with her mother the most wonderful of the home movies. Sharing a meal with family brings back memories. My mother marvels at how scrawny they all look; their post-war bodies not

The items my performer parents accumulated in their long careers sometimes travel down to me in the form of mysterious poster tubes. I have a vague sense of the contents but I’m afraid to unroll them because they are from as far back as 1947 and fragile as a butterfly wing. These were not designed to be long-lasting posters. These are thin paper that got plastered across walls with cheap glue and the expectation of impermanence. I had looked into mounting and framing for post

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in castles. Although, technically, many of these are considered manor houses. I have many childhood memories of this particular house in the south of France. Castles aren’t great for modern living. They’re often isolated and drafty. The bathrooms are well-appointed and somehow always fifty years out of date. So you don’t want to redecorate the amazing bathroom, but it’s a struggle to use it. And there are spiders. And maybe an owl being spooky

One of my fellow opera nerds made a joke by saying, “Meet you at Maxim’s” and I was transported to Art Nouveau Paris. Only, I could hear my mother sing Vilja. It’s funny how these things live inside us. I thought I’d share in my latest time travel adventure. Vilja is a delightful song and the most well-known piece from the beloved operetta, The Merry Widow. #opera #Vilia #Paris #Vilja #aria #France #TheMerryWidow #ArtNeaveau #MariaBaroni #mezzosoprano #Maxims #operetta

With a photo of Elise from from a few years prior to that same time period. My grandmother was a very talented artist. The whole family has been immortalized by her deft hand. And twenty years later visiting her daughter and granddaughter in Chicago in the 1950s. #fashion #painting #HélèneLasserre #HectorLasserre #style #portraitartist #vintagephotography #portrait #1930sFrance #artist #EliseLasserre #sketch #France #portraitpainting #vintagephotos

Virtually everyone I know, in a virtual manner, has renamed themselves Charlie this week. #jesuischarlie The gruesome murder of staffers at the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris has created a solidarity among writers and comics and fans of freedom. Unfortunately, it does mean that we’re also defending the freedom of a publication that frequently behaved like assholes. Comedy–particularly the crude machete that is satire–can punch down. On a normal day I don’t give a crap about th

My paternal great-grandfather was a rakish fellow from near Brussels, Belgium. The bit of family lore we do know about him is that he was good with the ladies and he was a champion billiards player. This was, in fact, his profession. Rumor has it he taught royalty how to play. Here is a pastel done of him that I’ve photographed during the early days of digital cameras. Not the best image, but I think you can get a sense of his louche style. Great grandfather Gustave eventuall

We had a traditional relationship with animals. We had many pets we adored living alongside our fur coats and hunting trophies. It’s a bit odd from our more modern perspective, but it makes sense when you consider that subsistence hunting was the normal way of life for most of our history. We had the dogs living alongside us to help us in the hunt. I’m not talking about the epic assholes who hunt rare animals, I think we can all agree those people ought to have their heads mo

No one is more American than an immigrant. I think of my family when the US  immigration reform discussion crops up again because we are all of us born in France and new to America. Yes, it is a peculiar feature of my life that despite having the most French of families my own mother and her parents lived outside of Chicago starting in 1953. In fact, they lived the American Dream. Their house in the suburbs. I think only a family as art directed by a French woman could captur