Cancer Fighting Kitchen

Dear Art Lover,

     JudyWitts Francini is a friend of mine here in Italy.  She has always been a great resource for all sorts of things that I have needed guidance on over the years that I have known her.  Given her high energy levels and optimism, I can only surmise that she feeds off of doing good deeds!  Judy teaches classes and gives tours about Tuscan cooking.  She loves to show people Sicily as well.  Check out her site:

http://www.divinacucina.com/

     Most all of us know someone, even a family member or two, who have, are, or will suffer through the fear of a cancer diagnosis.  I have a lot of caretakers in my family, as well.  And perhaps this is a stupid thing to say, but often caretaking is like suing someone:  You may not be on the scariest side of the fence, but your life is still not gonna be fun for a while. 

     I began hearing about nutrition ~ EXTREME nutrition ~ being a strong antidote to cancer back in the early 1980s.  Since that time, I began to pay attention to a lot of foods and what they do.  However, I am not really into cooking or food prep, so my actions have been more towards trying to avoid the not-so-good stuff to hedge my health bets.  Sadly, the “not-so-good” is often a typical American diet.  And since most countries and people watch what the US does and US Corporations have a way of sneaking into everyone’s lives, nutrition has seen the slippery slope for decades now.

     I was chatting with Judy recently about my grave concerns over someone in my family with cancer.  Judy immediately told me about her friend Rebecca Katz and her book, The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen: Nourishing, Big-Flavor Recipes for Cancer Treatment and Recovery  Written in English and available on Amazon,   Rebecca’s book gives recipes for nutrient-rich foods of all sorts of colors and textures, geared towards a variety of tastes and levels of eating. 

    What I also enjoy about the book is how she explains that the different stages of chemotherapy affect appetite.  For example, if chemo makes stuff taste funny [often metallic], one loses the desire to eat.  However, the last thing one should ever do is to starve oneself of life-giving nutrients!  It is horrible enough what chemo is doing to our bodies!  Rebecca has solutions for most everything.

     Judy also reiterated that it is not just the nourishment.  The simple acts of the cooking and smelling the flavors in the preparation help both caretaker and cancer-fighter heal and also feel as if they are not helpless.

 

     Anyway, Judy does not live in Florence, Italy, any longer, but she does come up here for private clients and tours.  So, I was thrilled to meet her at the Savoy hotel in one corner of Piazza della Repubblica the other day.  She loaned me her signed copy of Rebecca’s book.  I then shopped at the Vivimarket that sells foods that Italians consider ethnic.  The images I include in this post are from an autumn flower arrangement within the Savoy that I photographed since I had arrived early and was amusing myself, as I do.

      I have a favor to ask now:  I recently found out that I lost my Amazon affiliate status.  It was my fault since I procrastinated on responding to their e-mails about updating my status.  They have some new child protection clauses I was apparently supposed to sign off on.  I just saw e-mails to update my ad links.  Boh.   So, I started a new account and Amazon told me that they will verify it once I make my first sale. 

    If this book interests you or could interest someone you know, please click on my new affiliate link below.  You pay the same, but Amazon helps support my art career just a little.  Thank you!  Seriously, the recipes in this book look so good, I would not limit it to cancer patients.  It might even prevent cancer by keeping you strong and less polluted inside by processed foods.  Where is the downside to that?

Peace,

Kelly

~ Kelly Borsheim, sculptor, painter, writer, teacher

http://BorsheimArts.com

Book Street Painting Florence Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),
I head to Italy soon and wanted to make a shameless plug for my new book “My Life as a Street Painter in Florence, Italy” and it looks great! There are over 330 images in the book and while I did try to focus on the art, there are images of the artists who create the paintings. I also wrote about various issues that street artists face, including our struggles with taxes and government and the joys of sharing the street with other performers and artists and vendors.

I have had a couple of repeat buyers – several art lovers who bought the book for themselves and after reading it decided to order more for holiday gifts. One of my favorite comments was that I really portrayed what it feels like to work in the street all day making art… the ambiance of it all. [Street painters in Florence, Italy, tend to start around 10 a.m. and work until midnight creating one artwork in chalk and pastel.]

I have some books here in the USA with me that I have no room to take to Italia. They will stay with my mom for a bit, but I would love to be able to ship a copy or two out to you before I go. If you enjoy art and people and travel, or any of those, please consider this book for you or a loved one. Do not forget to include the name(s) you would like me to write into the book signing.
To order, please visit my contact page: http://www.borsheimarts.com/contact.htm and you may pay safely with PayPal.

Thank you so much and Buon Natale.
My next post will most likely come from Italy!

Camille Claudel Book Review

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

A little while ago, I finished a book about a passionate sculptor. The book “Camille Claudel: A Novel” was published in 2006 and written by Alma H. Bond, Ph.D. The young French sculptor was an apprentice and for a while, a lover, of the great master sculptor August Rodin. Many people I have spoken with think that she was at least his equal, if not better than her male contemporary. Some even speculate as to how much of her hand is in Rodin’s work – a logical assumption given the typical apprentice system of professional artists throughout history.

Since I really did not know much about Camille’s life and path, I enjoyed reading about her days as a child. I could relate to them quite well because I remember playing in the muddy creek beds with my own brothers in Germany and in the States, relishing the feel of the wet clay and often fashioning it into bowls and other forms.

Anyone who has felt a heady love can certainly enjoy the very girlishly romantic descriptions of Camille’s growing attraction and later full-blown love affair with the much older Monsieur Rodin. I still do not really understand why Rodin ultimately left Camille, unless it was simply that he refused her insistence upon a relationship on her terms (marriage). However, some hearts are more fickle than others are and as real life and much literature can attest, sometimes circumstances, ambitions, and other people’s decisions create variables that become insurmountable obstacles to one’s potential.

This novel is written in first person and I often felt that I was inside of Camille’s mind, feeling her thoughts as my own. Perhaps this was part of the reason I felt so uncomfortable, sometimes annoyed, and often depressed as I read the latter parts of the book. After the cooling of the relationship of these two passionate artists, Rodin continued his adventurous amours and career.

But Camille began to withdraw from the world and wavered between periods of grief, insecurity, pride, anger, isolation, and paranoia, and yes, even some happy moments. All of these emotions seemed quite reasonable to me, given the frustrations and losses she endured both professionally and personally. But knowing that she spent the last 30 years or so of her life in an asylum and worse, NOT creating (in fact, she even destroyed some of her works) made me feel alternately angry and sad. Too many times I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her out of her self-pity and despair and get to work.

Ultimately this novel left me with more questions than answers, but that is by no means a bad thing. And I felt that the writing was consistent with the thought patterns of a sensitive soul trying to find some understanding for why people behaved as they did. Without explanation or resolution, it is difficult to move on, as so many others expect one to do. I indulge my own pain for longer than most others can appreciate, but I like to think that another part of me takes over and pushes me to keep working towards my dreams despite grieving or the insensitivity of others.

But my main question remains: What quality is it that allows one person to function and even excel despite bad relationships with parents, lovers, employers, or others while others collapse into themselves? What personality trait enables one person to turn her grief and rage into a motivation to succeed beyond all expectations, while another has only the energy for self-sabotage? How selfish must the soul of another be to turn love into hatred? Is it inevitable that super-sensitive people will suffer from this trait?

Would the world have enjoyed more of Camille Claudel’s incredible sculptures if events and personalities in her life had been a little different? If yes, how different would those relationships in her life have had to be? Her intense and unresolved emotions kept her from creating. If she had been able to keep sculpting, could she have healed from her personal sorrows?

Can we ever know? Read the book to see if you can determine possible pivotal points in this dramatically sad, yet influential life.
Buy the book via this link and help support this blog: Camille Claudel: A Novel
Thank you!

Happy Birthday, Jake

(may you never feel the pain or injustices endured by Camille Claudel)