A Work Progressing

It was probably June of 1959. We rarely stayed home during the summer. We had discovered “car camping”. We started off loading the sedan with boxes and paper bags full of food and cooking gear, some blankets and one Montgomery Ward’s checked inner/forest green shell official sleeping bag that zipped open to be a blanket.

My parents slept under a pitched tarp in reclined lawn chairs, and I had the pulled out back seat of the four door Plymouth sedan. The seat had to be propped up to be level. It was only for Saturday night, and it was an adventure.

My father had a few forest maps with the logging roads highlighted. We were somewhere in California, four hours from home, on a yellow dust caked road, looking for a river that might have fish, specifically trout!

We found several that weekend and we began making a list of the several choices we didn’t make, looking for the best camp spots. There were no developed campsites at this time, no piped water, no flushing toilets, no electric outlets. It was just a wide dirt path, veered off the dirt road, with perhaps a rock pile of a fire pit to cook over. By today’s standards it was pretty rugged.

By June of 1959 we had traded in the Plymouth for a slightly used 1957 Chevrolet Station wagon, blue and white. It had lots more room, we kept the back seats folded down and packed all of our gear in the back. We had improved on much of the gear, little by little. We all had sleeping bags, we all had lawn chairs, we even had a tent with a screen door and back window. Very heavy coated canvas tent, backpacking didn’t exist, and this tent needed a major vehicle to haul it around. We even had a two burner, white gas stove.

We sometimes included the occasional High Sierra lake, but mostly it was still the riversides on the dusty logging roads. One weekend in late July, we didn’t go up to the mountains, instead we drove on the levee roads in the Delta to find a few fishing spots where a tent could be pitched. It was windy, and a bit chilly for summer, but we found a few spots where the tulle reeds were pressed flat in an area large enough for a tent, the river was only a few yards down the bank.

I remember after having breakfast we all went down to the river edge in order to catch perch, catfish, or maybe even a striped bass. Several minutes passed and we began seeing dozens of starlings flying against the wind, going down river. Within three minutes they had multiplied into several hundred. In ten minutes there were thousands, stretching all across the river, and you could hear the collective wings battling against the wind.

It was the first time that I had witnessed a mumuration, although they mostly just flew down the river about three feet above the water. Close enough that when my father cast his fishing line, the birds parted until the line had sunk beneath the surface, then they see less came back together, like a flying, pulsating, black zipper.

I took a break to back to the camp to get a snack. I could see a light smoke still coming from our pit. It turns out that we hadn’t made the fire on a flat rock, it was just brown dirt that was mostly ground up reeds that were growing all around us. The fire was low, but the wind was pushing it up the bank towards our pitched canvas tent.

Except something was in the way. Our picnic basket was halfway between the fire pit and the tent.

The fire loved the wicker woven basket, it burnt the walls to ashes, leaving the handle behind, looking like a charred St. Louis Arch. The basket still had its floor but the bread was ashes, the cheese was melted into the basket weave, and the quart of milk stood tall in the surrounding destruction. The top was burnt off, but the sides couldn’t burn past the level of milk. The milk was still in the waxed cardboard container, the wax was gone and the milk was filled with ashes, but it was still there. For some reason that fascinated me, so I called out, “The fire burned away our lunch, and the milk carton is missing it’s top, but standing in the middle.”

The next weekend we stopped at a private campground on an island in the delta. The levee had surrounded the island so that corn and wheat could be grown in the interior of the island. Later, I had read that the levee had once broken, and water was rushing in to drown the crops. A quick thinking river boat pilot had decided to plug the hole from getting bigger. He drove his side mounted paddle wheeled boat straight into the the opening, and plugged the gaps with sand bags. It saved the crops.

On the slough side of the river they were spots of development that had tent sites, electricity, nicely built concrete fire pits, and a small general store that sold beer with six stools at the bar.

You could still fish, but also you could have a river party. By late August we had been there several times, and had even brought friends and neighbors. We generally got there early enough to get the best campsite, surrounded by trees from the road, right near the river, and one of the closest site to the general store.

Our closest neighbor was across the road on the path to the back harbor where about 20 boats were berthed. One boat was owned by a friend. It was a converted Navy landing craft, the front landing ramp was sealed shut, and a very nice cabin was built where soldiers had once stood, waiting to land on the beach and charge into the jungle. It was painted pink. It was a boat with a little history.

I was on the way, with a friend, to go to the harbor, I had crossed the road and followed the path to the left of our neighbor’s campsite. I saw their dog charging at an angle to intercept us before we crossed the berm. I didn’t have time to run, or change direction, I could only stop and turn slightly to face the hound. He was dark brown with light brown spots above his eyes, and a white chest, and belly.

I know his belly was while, because before he could rip my face off, he had come to the end of his chain, and at his upward leap to my face, the chain became taunt, the dog’s butt went under his chest. He was now on his back, feet in the air, exposing his white chest, and belly to the sky.

I was paralyzed with fear, unmovable with my heart in my throat. After checking that the chain was secure I decided to stay at little while, thinking that the dog might not go berserk the next time that I used the path.

I had the camp bolo knife with me, because my actual intention was to gather some kindling for the next fire. I saw that some of the bark on the tree next to the path had fallen, leaving a little bald spot on the tree. Apparently the tree was the target for a little knife or ax throwing.

I gathered the loose bark up while the dog watched me carefully. With my bolo knife I could pry off a little more of the bark, both higher and lower. The tree was fairly large, maybe 3 or 4 feet in circumference. In a short while, I had a band about halfway around the tree. I sent my friend taking arms full of bark back across the road to my camp.

Meanwhile, I continued prying chunks of bark, thinking there would be enough for tomorrow’s breakfast. Eventually there was a two foot wide band completely around the tree, with the lighter wood in stark contrast against the darker bark. It looked like the tree was wearing a belt.

At the camp I told my father about the dog nearly biting me. He got mad that the dog’s chain went so close to the path where kids walked. The owner of the resort was walking nearby, so my father went to him to complain about our neighbor.

The owner was there because someone had damaged one of his trees. They had banded one of the oldest and largest of the trees on the island. The nourishment needed from the roots passes up and out to the leaves by flowing up in the layer between the hard wood and the bark. The bark could be damaged in spots, but the flow could still go around the damage. But if the bark was removed completely around the tree, then it would be long and slow death.

The owner was very upset, and asked who had done this, my father shrugged and talked about the dog. I overheard all this and stood in shock. I had murdered his tree!

The owner scratched his head and walked away. I followed my father back to the camp. He immediately saw the pile of bark, then he looked at me. My eyes looked back, and maybe my lips quivered a little. My father saying nothing, but immediately covered the bark pile with a tarp.

That evening we burned all the evidence.

The last time we were at the resort there was a large party. Several friends with their families had come for the long Labor Day weekend. The Sunday night drinking had gone from the afternoon until late at night.

Monday morning I was up early to start packing. I looked across the road to the tree I had murdered. It was still dying, the tree had not fallen.

There was a group of people talking excitedly near the path to the boat berths. Chet was there, he owned the pink landing craft that had given us so many rides.

He was very upset and I couldn’t hear everything that was said. He mentioned his nine year old daughter was crying uncontrollably. I knew her, she was fine yesterday, we played together often.

Then he said, “It’s too late, he just took off.”

I saw that my father was there, and my older brother, on leave from the Army. My father and older brother walked back to the camp where I was standing. My brother looked at me, then asked me to get his motorcycle helmet. He continued talking to my father.

“It’s an island Dad. There’s only two ways off, and he would take the route to get to the city the fastest. To get lost in the crowd. Unless he was super lucky, he is going to have to wait for the ferry. They can only take six cars, and with this long weekend there will be several times waiting in line. He’s probably still there.”

He got on his Harley Roadking, and took off spraying pebbles and dust. I was unclear why he was going, and who was he going to catch. My father would say nothing.

Several hours passed before he came back. My said something low to my father, I did not hear. We continued to pack up for the three hour drive home. I lay in the back of the station wagon, watching my brother following on his motorcycle, while my parents talked in low tones.

We never saw Chet, his family, or the pink landing craft again. I assumed they moved on. I never found out directly what had happened. Eventually I found out that the young girl, my friend, was molested, I don’t know to what extent.

I don’t know if the chased person managed to catch the ferry and escape, or if he was caught by the police, or if he suffered road justice.

I just know that there were subtle changes after that summer.

Of course it was always more than simple data… genealogy is about real people with real lives, facing history’s challenges.

But I’ve never paid much attention to the little images that showed up on the records. Yes, the photographs I paid attention to, but the paintings/sketches? I just assumed they were inventions to dress up the entry.

It turns out that some had very good connections to the people, of course the poor Norwegian/German farmers did not have portraits, but some of the minor nobility had a few.

So, I’ve been playing around, fixing things, restoring damage, maybe even a spa treatment or two.

Ida was born in Cham, Nordgau, Bavaria and she was my 29th great grandmother. Not much is known about her life. Her father was Count Rapoto IV of Cham. Her mother was Mathilde von Wels-Lambach, Gräfin von Passau und von Cham, and also from a long line of much higher royalty than her father, one of her mother’s ancestors was an Empress of the Holy Roman Empire.

Ida married well, her husband, Leopold II of Babenberg, was ten years older and left her as a widow in 1095.

Six years later Ida joined the First Crusade in 1101. In September of that year, Ida and her army were among those ambushed at Heraclea Cybistra by the sultan Kilij Arslan I. Ekkehard of Aura reports that Ida was killed in the fighting, but rumors persisted that she survived, and was carried off to a harem, according to Albert von Aachen.

Ekkehard of Aura’s is probably the most likely version, as he is the only one who can rely on eyewitnesses who were survivors of the Battle of Heraclea Cybistra, whom Ekkehard met a few weeks later in Jaffa, while Albert von Aachen and the author of the Historia Welforum reported only after hearsay.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around the fact that six years after being a widow she raised an army to go on Crusade. It wasn’t as if she took over her husband’s role at the moment of death, then continued on. This was her decision. She could stayed safely in Bavaria and managed her lands, and married yet another noble to gain prestige and wealth.

The cynic might say that she saw that possibility in joining the Crusade. I doubt that. The primary motive was faith, and for some greed was never an issue.

Ida was definitely a force to contend with.

Well, I dunno. Something to cheer, or something to fear. I don’t generally reject new things simply because they are new. Well, not often, I’m more of a Luddite than a troglodyte.

For the few weeks I have been testing the various AI engines. I’m wondering if they are more like browsers that share a great vast database of facts. I say this because when I submit my questions (pasted from the same source), I get basically the same response.

I could use a number of different questions, but I choose, “Why are there so few women artists in former times?”

That leaves it open to the recent past or maybe even pre-historic. The responses usually start with the phrase “social norms” or “societal standards”. The next response is usually “the lack of information, training, or experience”.

The problem with “social norms” is that it doesn’t explain why they are what they are. Social norms are created by actions. What are the actions? I point out that this is an unspecific “softball” answer, and they agree and apologize. The language model that they are being taught is to give the impression that that AI is a friendly individual, someone that you will like. I call it “cocktail party” conversation. It would be rude to answer with specific systemic answers.

When I point this out, they all agree and say they are learning and they intend to be more specific rather than be “likable”.

Yet, the latest AI, Copilot by Microsoft, states ythat his primary function is to provide data in a “friendly manner”. I respond that AI should be civil but truthful. I don’t need a friend that does not have feelings, that’s a psychopath.

And again the last paragraph is always the same boilerplate… AI is learning, and appreciates my responses and will use information to improve… on and on and on.

I tell them that I will revisit and ask the same questions to see if they are learning. So far they have not. ChatGPT has had four visits and basically the same response and the same apologies. It’s like pulling hen’s teeth.

Bard/Gemini has the same repeated responses. Eventually they agree to systemic issues, with some accuracy, but it is not forth coming and would have remained hidden unless prodded.

Copilot gave the longest responses but never address the systemic issues until I raised them.

Everything got better when I provide the fact that today there are twice as many women art majors in colleges, yet there are twice as many men that obtain art shows in museums. Easily obtained data, factually true, and makes the “lack of information/training, etc” a falsehood.

AI is a tool, a wonderful tool. Like a sharp knife or a heavy hammer. Nothing to fear, unless it is used to harm.

Making AI into an app like Data in Star Trek, is a foolish use of the tool.

There are 48 Crusaders in my ancestry, to my knowledge. I know that this is currently not a popular subject, but I’m not trying to push a narrative. I’m only writing about history.

There are lots of books on the Crusades and there will probably be more written in the near future. Today, the buzzword for describing the same area is “that it is complicated”. It’s true today, it was true a thousand years ago.

I’ve been slowly collecting genealogical data for the last 50 years. At first it was hard fought and very few accurate entries.

Some years ago, the most vetted European royalty genealogy clubs placed their data online. For over a hundred years people having been tracing the various royal lines as a hobby. Most of the members didn’t even have family roots in the line.

It was a natural goal to find the one family line that married into a royal family that was on geni.com because it meant hundreds of thousands of new connections that were pretty solid. And when there was an issue, there were dozens of written opinions to help make your own decision.

So, about three years ago I did break through, and for a time it was really wonderful. However the database was open to everyone, so some people uploaded information that was more of a wish than a fact.

It’s still a great resource but it must be approached with caution.

As I started to enter the data, I realized that I still had to enter line by line into my database, and some copy mistakes were made that cost a lot of wasted time, but I did learn a good system to handle the transfer. I could also add notations of my own, in my personal database.

I noticed a pattern of only using the year for birth and death, but sometimes the death was very specific. This makes sense because often people were around, but also the dates may have been due to plague or other disasters.

I started collecting those who were killed in battle. History has already determined the dates. In the royal lines that occurred often.

I also flagged those individuals who died far from home. Some because of war, some from pilgrimage, and some from the Crusades.

Often the database mentioned specific Crusader events.

So this is my quick summary, more than half are direct great grandparents, some are great uncles or cousins, and a few are distant cousins twice removed. Generally, I tend to trim my database to direct lines, but I got interested in the story of their lives so for now I’ve left them alone. They all have some DNA although very, very, very, small amounts.

 

Bouchard IV Lord Of Montmorency Crusader

B:ABT 1129 Montmorency, Seine-et-Oise, Île-de-France, France

D:1189 Acre, Akko, North District, Israel

Richard I, the Lionheart, Crusader

B:8 SEP 1157 Oxford, Oxfordshire, England

D:6 APR 1199 Châlus, Haute-Vienne, Limousin, France

Jean de Bethencourt Crusader

B:ABT 1200 Bosc-Asselin, Sigy-en-Bray, Duché de Normandie, France

D: Battle, East Sussex

Otton II Trazegnies de Blicquy Crusader

B:ABT 1150 , , , Belgium

D:1192 Acre, Northern, Israel

Raoul I de Coucy, Count/Seigneur de Marle Crusader

B: October 15, 1134 Boves, Somme, Picardie, France 

D: November 01, 1191 Siege Acre, Palestine

Leopold von Babenberg Crusader

B:1050 Tulln, Tulln, Lower Austria, Austria

D:12 OCT 1095 Gars am Kamp, Horn, Lower Austria, Austria

Friedrich I, King “Barbarossa” Crusader

B:1122 Haguenau, Haguenau, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France

D:10 JUN 1190 Königreich, Jork, Stade, Niedersachsen, Germany

Floris III van Holland Crusader

B:1141 Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands

D:1 AUG 1190 Antioch

Dirk VI van Holland crusader

B:4 JAN 1114 Holland, Netherlands

D:5 AUG 1157 Vlaardingen, South Holland, Netherlands

Sophia Von Salm Rheineck, wife of Dirk VI

B:ABT 1115 Rhineland, Prussia, Germany

D:26 SEP 1176 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Étienne II de Blois Crusader

B:1 JAN 1045 Blois, Loir-et-Cher, Centre-Val de Loire, France

D:19 MAY 1102 Ramla, Israel

 

Guy de Montfort-Castres Crusader

B:BEF 1170

D:31 JAN 1228 Varilhes, Ariège, Midi-Pyrénées, France

Philippe Ier de Montfort-Castres Crusader

B:1206 Sidon, Lebanon

D:17 MAR 1275 Tyre, As Suwaydā’, Syria

Enguerrand II de Coucy Crusade

B:1110 Boves, Somme, Picardie, France

D:1148 Nazareth,Palestine (died in 3rd Crusade

Dreux de Mello Crusader

B:ABT 1137 Mello, Oise, Picardie, France

D:3 MAR 1217/1218 Saint-Bris-le-Vineux, Yonne, Burgundy, France

Guillaume de Mello Crusader

B:30 SEP 1165

D:30 JUN 1241 Nicosia, Cyprus

Hugues III de Bourgogne Crusader

B:1148 Dijon, Côte-d’Or, Burgundy, France

D:25 AUG 1192 Jerusalem, Israel

Sigurd I, “the Crusader” Magnusson King

B:1090 Ålen, Sor-Trondelag, Norway

D:Mar 26, 1130 Oslo, Norway

Fulk V, King of Jerusalem Crusader

B:1090 Anjou, Isere, Rhone-Alpes, France

D: November 10, 1143 Acre, The Holy Land (died from riding accident while hunting near Acre)

 

Baldwin III, king of Jerusalem Crusader

B:1130 Anjou, Isere, Rhone-Alpes, France

D: February 10, 1162 Tomb Of Kings, Jerusalem, Israel

Mélisende d’Édesse, Reine de Jerusalem Crusader

B: June 02, 1105 Bourg, Rethel (France) – dtr of Baldwin II

D:11 Sep 1161 Jerusalem, Israel

Amalric of Anjou, king of Jerusalem Crusader

B:1136 Anjou, France

D: July 11, 1174 Tiberias, Israel

Robert I “the Magnificent”, Duke of Normandy Crusader

B:June 22, 1000 Rouen, Seine Inferieure, Haute-Normandie, France 

D:July 03, 1035 Bahçelievler, İstanbul, Turkey (illness)

Estridson ‘Eric’ I “the Good” Jelling, King of Denmark Pilgrim

B:1056 Slangerup, Danmark

D:July 10, 1103 Paphos, Cyprus

Bodil Thurgotsdatter, Queen consort of Denmark Pilgrim

B:1065

D:1103 Jerusalem, Israel (Døde på Pilgrimstur)

Jean, lord of Bethencourt Crusader

B:1025

D:1100

Sir John Howard, Kt., MP, Sheriff of Essex, Pilgrim

B: August 22, 1365 Wiggenhall, Norfolk, England

D:November 17, 1437 Al Quds or Jerusalem, Niyabat al Quds, Mamluk Sultanate

Erard II, count of Brienne Crusader

B:June 01, 1130 Brienne-le- Chataeu, Champagne, France

D:February 08, 1191 Acre, Palestine (seige of Acre)

Heribert IV (VI), comte de Vermandois Crusader

B:July 20, 1032 Vermandois, Normandy, France 

D:February 23, 1080 Tarsus, Cilicia, Asia Minor (now Turkey)

Renaldo Señor De Launay Crusader

B:1027

D:

Renato De Bracquemont y Launay son of Renaldo, Crusader

B:1054

D:

 

Geoffroi IV de Joinville, seigneur de Joinville Crusader

B:1141 Joinville, Haute-Marne, Grand Est, France 

D: August 1190 Acre, Akko, North District, Israel

Georg “the Crusader” Spengler

B:1150 Wuerzburg, Bavaria, Germany

D:1190 Antioch, Turkey (Died while on Crusades

Salentin I, Graf von Isenburg-Kempenich Crusader

B:1200

D:1219 On Crusade

Adalbert II de Metz et Saargau, duc de Basse-Lorraine Crusader

B:970 Metz, (Present Lorraine), Western Francia (Present France)

D: December 25, 1033 Bouzonville (Returning from Jerusalem)

Robert de Beaumont, Third Earl of Leicester Crusader

B:1120 Leicester, Leicestershire, England

D: August 31, 1190 (now Albania), Durazzo Provence, Greece (Died in Greece on his return journey from a pilgrimage to Palestine.)

 

Guillaume de Grandmesnil, Heir of the honour of Grandmesnil Crusader

B:1092 Hinckley, Leicestershire, England

D:10 Feb 1184 Apulia, Italy

Guillaume le Jeune Gouët, d’Alluyes, III Crusader

B:1080 England

D:1119 Terre Sainte, , , , Palestine,

Ludwig I, Herzog von Bayern Crusader

B:23 Dec 1173 Kelheim, Bayern, Deutschland

D:September 15, 1231 Kelheim, Bayern, Deutschland

Otto I, Graf von Scheyern Crusader

B:1018 Schwaben, Kelheim, Bayern, Germany

D: December 04, 1072 Jerusalem, Judah, Israel

Guermond I de Picquigny, vidame d’Amiens Crusader

B:1080 France

D:1131 Saida, Gouvernorat du Sud-Liban, Líban (Lebanon)

Ernulf, seigneur de Hesdin Crusader

B:1038 Hesdin, Duchy of Lorraine (now Nord-Pas-de-Calais), France

D: 1098 (55-64) Antioch [nr. Modern Antakya], Hatay Province, Turkey (Killed on Crusade at Antioch, in the Holy Land)

Philip de Braose, 2nd Lord of Bramber Crusader

B:1073 Bramber, Horsham, Sussex, England

D:May 1134 Holy Land, Palestine

Bernard III (IV) de Saint-Valery, seigneur de Saint-Valéry Crusader

B:1113 Haseldene, Gloucestershire, England

D:September 17, 1191 Acre, Palestine (on crusade)

Gauthier “Crusader” de Saint-Valéry, Seigneur de Saint-Valéry Crusader

B:1031 Saint-Valery-en-Caux, Upper-Normandy, France

D:1098 Holy Land, Palestine

Eudes Borel, duc de Bourgogne Crusader

B:1058

D:March 23, 1102 Tarsus, Mersin Province, Turkey

90% of this data comes from http://www.geni.com and I have found that it is generally accurate and vetted with documents.

24 from France

6 from England

5 from Germany

3 from Belgium

2 from Denmark

1 from Norway

13 returned home

35 died while on Crusade, but not necessarily in battle.

14 were killed in action, in the record.

3 were women, two wives of pilgrims, one was the daughter of the King of Jerusalem, so she was Queen of Jerusalem.

 

So it seems that this week Netflix is pushing “Monument Men”, so I had the time, and my iPad was charged. Great flick. Underrated.

The interesting thing is that one of the featured pieces of was from daVinci, but not the Mona Lisa. It was Cecilia Gallerani, 1485.

And it was one of the first Renaissance pieces that I re-imagined.

I’m going to rewatch Monument Men in the near future. I’ve been long aware that the history of that simple gold bracelet I bought my wife could be quite complex. It’s possible that the gold was freshly panned by someone in the Sierra Navada mountains, then melted into ingots, then squeezed and hammered into a bracelet which I bought. Not likely.

Instead, gold is so honored and so precious, that any gold we have today is likely to be joined by 100 year old gold, one thousand year old gold, and maybe even Egyptian or Babylonian gold. An ounce of gold could have had many lives, and formed into many different pieces of art. One might say that silver and gold are destined to someday be loot in some future war. Then melted down and reformed.

Instead, gold is so honored and so precious, that any gold we have today is likely to be joined by 100 year old gold, one thousand year old gold, and maybe even Egyptian or Babylonian gold. An ounce of gold could have had many lives, and formed into many different pieces of art. One might say that silver and gold are destined to someday be loot in some future war. Then melted down and reformed.

Not true for all art. Sculpture in mountains will not transport, but they can be destroyed. Cave art can be transferred to a different country or culture if the land is conquered.

But most sculptures and most paintings can be loot, stolen by temporary victors and then recovered by the final victors. Except… mostly they are not.

The movie “Monument Men” is a

about the Nazi theft of most of the private art in Europe. Hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals got rich selling and delivering art that was not theirs to sell. ll about the Nazi theft of most of the private art in Europe. Hundreds, maybe thousands of individuals got rich selling and delivering art that was not theirs to sell.

State or public museums can be affected, but in World War II it was the private collections of people that were conquered, particularly the Jewish collectors of Europe. The process was simple, first the government had to divide the population into distinct groups, then the rights of one group was lessened. Jews weren’t exactly people, so they could not own property. It wasn’t right to leave the property, or to reemburse, so the state simply seized all of the art.

Then the official property department sold the art to various Nazi leaders, Herman Goering in particular. After the war the selling continued even if the war did not. Dozens of sales meant the private collections went to hundreds of museums and other individuals through out the world.

I’ve known this for some time, but recently I became reacquainted with the art of the Cranach family, Lucas the Elder and Lucas the younger. It turns out that both of them were commissioned to paint some of my ancestors. They were mostly minor nobles but some were Electors of Brandenburg or Saxony. The Cranachs were hired to paint the leaders of the government.

Many Germany painters were collected by the wealthy in Europe, some were royalty, some were merchants and some were Jewish. Art has always appreciated over time, and it was a good investment.

So I have been reimagining some of the Cranachs work. There were several version of Adam and Eve that Lucas the Elder had painted. The one I choose to re-imagine was owned by the Simon Norton museum in Southern California. I just read today that a court had decided that the painting was not looted and that the museum could keep it, as it has for the last 50 years. The family that had owned it before Goering stole it, gets nothing.

I think it’s about fifteen years of password use before all the normal passwords run out. I know this is a general statement, and theoretically there are many millions of passwords possible. However…

There are a finite number of passwords that can be recalled. Depending upon how many demands on shared passwords, a normal family of four runs out of “patterns” in roughly fifteen years. A number that coincides with my experience.

I have cycled through the time limits of most of my secure accounts. That means I have changed so many times in a year that I have to create a new pattern. One interesting side fact is that I can tell how long it has been when I need to access the account by how many different passwords I’ve tried to use. I found one account that still used the first complex password that I made.

And of course, most serious sites only give you three tries before a phone call is necessary. I have used the Apple password app to help me remember odd sites, but it is inconsistent and doesn’t always update automatically.

I’ve noticed that some sites now require 9 characters, at least one capital, at least one number, at least one special character. I had a good pattern for the 8 characters and adding 1 to the end to make it secure seems pointless.

How secure are we really?

It’s almost been 7 years since I made my first post about the artists that I love. I’ve grown a bit since then and have gotten deeper into my likes. I’ve copied or made versions of most of the images I love. Very complex reasons why I have to do this. It makes me feel closer in some sort of way. So far I’ve listed 40 artists. This part three may not stop at twenty.

1. Georgia O’Keefe

So many great pieces. Impactful!

2. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1727-1824

3. Agnolo Bronzino, 1503-1572

4. Alessandro Allori, 1535-1607

5. Niccolò dell’Abbate, 1510-1571

6. Boccaccio Boccaccino, 1467-1525

7. Antonello da Messina, 1430-1479

8. Anthony van Dyck, 1599-1641

9. Peter Paul Rubens, 1567-1640

10. Artemisia Gentileschi, 1593-1656

11. Jacopo Amigoni, 1682-1752

12. Helen Allingham, 1848-1926

13. Cecilia Beaux, 1855-1942

14. Marie Bracquemond, 1840-1916

15. Maria Louisa Catherine Cecilia Cosway, 1760-1838

16. Rosalba Carriera, 1673-1757

17. Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926

18. Anne Vallayer-Coster, 1744-1818

19. Mary Beale, 1633-1699

20. Hans Holbein, the Younger, 1497-1543

21. Andrea del Sarto, 1486-1530

22. Massimo Stanzione, 1585-1686

23. Fra Filippo Lippi, 1406-1469

24. Petrus Christus, 1410-1475

25. Rogier van der Weyden, 1399-1464

26. Giovanni Battista Moroni, 1520-1578

27. Fra Angelico, 1395-1455

28. Tiziano Vecelli or Titian, 1490-1576

29. Frans Pourbus the younger, 1569-1622

30. Jan Van Eyck, 1390-1431

31. Jacob Jordaen

32. Hans Holbein, the Elder, 1460-1524

33. Susan Macdowell Eakins, 1851-1938

34. Lorenzo Costa, 1460-1535

Hmm, I got this comment on an image that I posted on Facebook, and it got me thinking. I have been on a journey to reimagine some classic images that I love. I’ve called them “tributes” in the past, but lately it’s been “re-image” or “reimagine”.

When I do this I have used lots of media, some digital, some not. It started after my heart attack when for a month or two I went medieval and only used brush and canvas. I had fun, I learned my skills haven’t improved much in portraits. Much better in landscapes.

Then I came to my senses and included my digital skills as part of the process. I would sketch in charcoal, scan the image, add some digital, print, then add some color pencil, then scan to add some more digital. A real mixed media approach.

Some images were very successful to my eye, some failed to meet standards, but so it goes. All is art, some is not good art.

Back to the comment, “That looks like AI”. I’ve been down this road so many times. I remember going down the lane at a street art fair, looking at the various booths displaying art. One booth had dozens of interesting photographs, landscapes, city scenes, portraits…

Above the entrance to the booth there was a sign with bold print, “None of these photos have been touched by PhotoShop!” Uhh, okay?

Soo… these were handmade?

That was a somewhat snarky response, sorry. I spent nearly thirty years teaching Photoshop to people to improve/repair photographs, to create digital art, and to separate photographs for the halftone printing process. It wasn’t a bad thing.

I know the intention of the booth owner. Some people like to adhere to a fixed process. Some like to called it the “traditional tools techniques”. I like it, I like that hard fought knowledge doesn’t disappear. I still like setting lead type, using furniture to lock it in, tighten with a quoin key, hand feed paper into a windmill press. The finished work has a different quality. I love the impression and the smell of the ink. But it isn’t better than the type I see on my iPad! Nor is the iPad better.

I remember visiting some galleries with my early “giclee printed on canvas” digital work. The owner would say, “Oh yes, that looks like computer generated art.” Hmm, was that perceptive or judgmental?

Apparently his clients preferred brush generated art for their dining rooms, providing that the colors match the carpet.

“That’s not art, it’s merely an impression of art.” “Photography takes all the skill out of making pictures”. “No Photoshop here!” “That looks like AI”

All this to say is that humans make tools. Most of the time the tools are improvements in the process. Sometimes that gives the impression that the products are better, and sometimes they are. However, if better tools make worse products then the market will correct itself. Giving a special quality to older techniques is fair, but it shouldn’t limit the progress of tools making newer products.

I loved the historical fact that for thousands of years brushes were all round. They were big and small, and everything in between, but they were all round. It was how brushes were made. Then in the middle of the 19th century, an American invented a metal ferrel for the tip of the brush that was flat. So then we had fan brushes, flat brushes, flat brushes with stiffer bristles. Just in time for the onset of the “plein air” movement, when a lot of paint had to be applied in a short amount of time, because light was changing outside.

But perhaps there were booths with signs saying, “Only round brushes used here”, or “Only fresh ground pigments stored in pig’s bladders here”.

I dunno. We have been trained to fear AI. We have certainly created a lot of media where machines have not been friendly to humans. From “Metropolis” in the 1920s, to Hal in “2001, A Space Odyssey”, and finally in all of the various “Terminator” movies… they gave all of us reasons to mistrust technology and future “artificial intelligence tools”.

And the fact is, that all tools can be abused, because humans are made that way. The fear is that our tools are abusing and using tools in the same way as humans, only better and faster. A complex thought.

Need we become Luddites? In response to automated weaving looms, do we throw our wooden shoes into the machine? Do we throw our sabots, becoming “saboteurs”?

“Looks like AI”, “No Photoshop here” , “Only round brushes used”