Blog Archives

The Ugly Side of Beauty

2/22/2014

Director Darryl Roberts in the documentary, America the Beautiful, follows the rise and fall of a teenager as she enters and is ejected from the modeling world and the ups and downs of her self-esteem as she grapples with the situation.

He uses this real-life story as the framework to explore the damaging impacts on all our lives of media brainwashing on what is beautiful.

Body image, self-esteem, and beauty are further explored through statistics and interviews covering cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, and other body-image issues.

Enlightening, engrossing, and often shocking, this film shows how much we are conditioned to viewing distorted, unattainable beauty images as the yardstick of female perfection and how much we all lose by uncritically accepting this perspective.

Click on the above DVD cover to find out more. (Affiliate Link)

Hippie Boy: A Girl's Story

2/15/2014

Hippie Boy is a slice-of-life memoir about Ingrid Rick’s fragmented, poverty-ridden, incendiary life as a teenager.

It’s a life with four siblings; a devout Mormon mother (originally from Austria) who gives her power away to men; a perpetually on-the-road father who sells cheaply made tools and whose main passion is to build a million-dollar business; and a stepfather who eats only meat, smells foul, and in Ingrid’s words is a “psycho religious fake.”

It’s a life that anyone would want to escape.

And escape she does. But, like the lives of most of us, there is no fairy godmother waving her magic wand. Her freedom comes through hard work, resilience, luck, and an occasional helping hand.

Looking for a page-turner? Try this memoir. I read it in one sitting.

Click on the cover to find out more. (Affiliate link)

And visit her website.

Get Cozy with A Cozy Mystery!

2/8/2014

Looking for a fun, light read full of twists and turns? Want a book where violence isn’t what the story revolves around? And involves a helping hand from the ghostly realms?

Then check out an Aunt Dimity cozy mystery by Nancy Atherton.

In this series of books, Lori Sheperd, along with the support of her bunny Reginald and the help of her dead friend Dimity, solves mysteries in the Cotswolds of England.

In Aunt Dimity Snowbound, Lori is stranded by ghastly weather in an empty Gothic mansion with three strangers, including the cantankerous caretaker of Ladythorne Abbey who continues to love the dead Lucasta, a madwoman and past mistress of the mansion.

Nothing is quite as it seems as Lori seeks to find out the reasons for Lucasta’s madness and stumbles upon other dark secrets held in the deep recesses of Ladythorne Abbey.

Find out more by clicking on the book cover! (Affiliate Link)

The House of Sand

2/1/2014

The Brazilian film, The House of Sand, is minimalist in dialogue, color, scene, music, and costume and yet is eloquent and expansive.

The story begins in Brazil in 1910 when a husband relocates his pregnant wife and his mother-in-law out to a sandy coast to start a farm.

It’s a desolate place of sand, sea, sun, and wind. Few people live in this area and no one can farm the ever shifting dunes, even one’s home must be moved from time to time or become completely buried.

Calamity strikes and the women are stranded. Unable to return to the city they came from, they must find a way to survive under harsh conditions. And they do. Yet, the passion to return to city life is an undercurrent that cannot be denied. It winds from mother to daughter and brings both sundering as well as peace.

The House of Sand is a quiet and beautiful film about love, endurance, and acceptance. Click on the DVD cover or the DVD title to find out more. (Affiliate link)

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Author

Kathryn V. White is an author and artist who dreams of rousingly playing a djembe in a drum circle.

Two of my books are finalists in the 2014 Wishing Shelf Book Awards! Click on the below book covers to learn more.

Rumble Tumble Joy book reviews: San Francisco Book Review (4 star) & Story Circle Book Reviews (4 star).

2020 Juried Exhibit at the Washington State History Museum

Kathryn's collage, "Resonating Truth" has been juried into a show at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma, Washington. The exhibit runs from April 9 to August 20, 2020.

2019 - 2020 Juried Traveling Art Exhibit in Virginia

Kathryn's papercutting plus collage "Summer Interlude" has been juried into a traveling show. The exhibit runs September 9, 2019 to December 8, 2019 at Gallery 3700 in Arlington, Virginia and from December 17, 2019 to February 18, 2020 at Westover Library in Arlington, Virginia.

2019 Juried Exhibit at the Washington State Convention Center

Kathryn's large collage "When I'm Gone, Who Will Remember Me?" has been juried into a show at the Washington State Convention Center's Phyllis Lamphere Gallery. The exhibit runs January 12, 2019 to March 31, 2019.

Poetry On Buses
Kathryn's poem, The Sound Soothes, was selected for the 2017 Poetry on Buses: Your Body of Water Program and is a part of the online collection! Click here to read it!

2018 Juried Exhibit at the Rosehill Community Center

*Three of Kathryn's collages have been juried into an exhibit at the Rosehill Community Center in Mukilteo, WA from April 3 through June 24, 2018. "Phoenix" won the Northwest Collage Society's prestigious Eleanor Wolters Smith Memorial Award.

2017 SOLO SHOW at the University Business Center

*20 of Kathryn's artworks were on exhibit in a solo show from October 16 through December 7, 2017 at the University Business Center's Gallery 4500 in Seattle's U-District.

2017 Juried Exhibit at Seattle City Hall
Kathryn's collage, "Welcome to My Universe" was juried into the exhibit, "Hot Town: Summer in the City" at the Seattle City Hall in downtown Seattle that ran from July 7 through August 30, 2017.

2017 Juried Exhibit at Seattle University
Kathryn had a large collage, "Broadway at Times Square" juried into the 2017 Search for Meaning Art Exhibition (part of the Search for Meaning Book Festival) from February 16 to 25, 2017 at Seattle University's Vachon Gallery.

2017 Juried Exhibit at Cascadia Art Museum
Kathryn had a collage, "Indra's Net" juried into the exhibit, "Collaged Impressions of the Northwest Social Realism and the American Scene 1930 to 1950" that ran January 19 to March 26, 2017 at the Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds, WA.

2017 Exhibit at Dreamclinic
Kathryn had 10 artworks exhibited from January through April 12, 2017 at Dreamclinic in Seattle's Roosevelt neighborhood.

BUY ART:
Kathryn's art is available as fine art prints. Click here to find out more.

Kathryn’s quotes

"You have everything when you embrace the full circle of life."— Kathryn V. White

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