Rain, rain here to stay

Well, it's been raining in fair Columbia for three days now, thanks to the remnants of Ida, and though most people are complaining and chanting "rain, rain, go away," I am loving it.

Overcast and chilly--a blessed day in my book--throw in some cold rain to boot and I am in heaven.

I have always romanticized places that are defined by their dreary weather--London, Seattle, San Francisco, (I know, SF does have months of really sunny and mild weather, but the year I lived there it rained all winter).

London

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Sample Seattle Weather Forecast

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San Francisco
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I think this love-affair with gloomy weather stems from a couple things: first, I adore wearing scarves, hats, coats, sweaters, jeans...pretty much perfect clothing for wind and rain. Second, in my mind this type of weather connotes a thinker's sort of dark and broodish, but highly creative environs. I always feel super-productive and sharp and creative when it's cold and dark. And finally, I love drizzly days because I have a peculiar fondness for umbrellas.

As a student at Washington & Lee University I took an Asian art history class* that introduced me to the influences of Asian art, particularly Japanese woodblock prints, on western art. Some of my favorite woodblock prints, and in turn, pieces of later western art, included umbrellas. In fact, I wrote a research paper comparing the use of umbrellas in Japanese woodblock prints and western art...

Hiroshige woodblock print
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Kiyonaga woodblock print
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Leonetto Capiello's Parapluie Revel
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Claude Monet's Woman with Umbrella
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Maurice Brazil Prendergast's Umbrellas in the Rain
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*Sadly, the professor who taught the two Asian art history courses that I took at W&L passed away recently. RIP Dr. Joan O'Mara.

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