Memoirous

I’m a in a summertime non-fiction stage. Losing myself into pages upon pages. That’s the nice thing about non-fiction—you can read as fast as you want and not have to worry about the thread of a story or the outcome of certain characters. We already know what happened to them, we only care about how they got there. Right now I’m immersed in the life of artist/illustrator Norman Rockwell. American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell by Deborah Solomon is a highly readable and enjoyable biography that doesn’t seem to gloss or get lost in the controversy of whether Rockwell was a true artist or the definitions that separate an artist from an illustrator. The high attendance that accompanies exhibitions of his work have taken care of that. He is popular, so was Jackson Pollack. He was the stuff of headlines, so was Mapplethorpe. Warhol bought several of Rockwell’s paintings. Perhaps he shared an affinity with Rockwell as Warhol started off his career as a commercial ar...