According to a recent 20 year-study conducted by Mariah Evans at the University of Nevada, parents who have books in the home increase the level of education their children will attain. Books in the home--a 500 book or more home library--had an equally significant impact on the level of education children achieved as parents' education levels, trumping variables such as parents' wealth and the literacy levels of parents. This is further evidence that, from an educational perspective, the most important thing we can do as parents is read to our children, supply them with books and make the home a literature rich environment.
Yesterday evening, independent scholar and critic Michelle Marder Kamhi ( www.mmkamhi.com ), co-editor with husband Louis Torres of Aristos , an online review of arts; author of Who Says That's Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts ; and grandmother of two Saint David's boys, gave a thought provoking talk on art for our grandparent community. An advocate of objective standards in arts scholarship and criticism, Ms. Kamhi focused her talk on the ways in which art critics such as Clement Greenberg promoted the shift from representational art to abstraction. Kamhi argues that the abstract and post-modern art prevalent today, which often requires explanation by docents in order to be understood, goes against art's purpose. Taking issue with Greenberg's contention that representation is an expendable convention of painting, she quoted the late art critic John Canaday: "Art is the tangible expression of the intangible values that men live by." ...
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