My Own Words

by Ruth Bader Ginsburg with Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams

Published by Simon & Schuster 2016

Pages 370 Price $30

This book is timely because of the importance of the  Supreme Court and its stabilizing influence on our nation. It is also a memoir of one of the most important women living in our times, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She has been in the news lately, not for her court decisions, but because she has miraculously survived another recurrence of cancer.

The book is composed of selections from Ginsburg’s lectures and decisions on major issues which she supported. It brings out her early serious nature when young in the 8th grade as newspaper editor of the Elementary School 238 of Brooklyn, New York in 1946.

She said as editor of her school newspaper, ”Since the beginning of time the world has known four great documents, great because of all the benefits to humanity which came about as a result of their fine ideals and principles.” She continued to list the following documents: The Ten Commandments, the  Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Charter of the United Nations, as the most important documents that benefited humanity.”

Therefore, from the very beginning, Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed her mature and broad grasp of issues to help humanity. She has continued in that pattern as an adult throughout her life.

At Harvard Law School she wrote for the Law Review and was one of only nine women at Harvard Law School in 1956. She transferred to Columbia University Law School and graduated in 1957. During that period women lawyers were not considered  capable enough to be hired in New York law firms. They were hired as secretaries but not as lawyers. However, Ginsburg eventually found a job. In 1963 she was the second woman who taught full time at Rutgers School of Law. During that year Ginsburg fought for the Equal Pay Act under President John F. Kennedy, which bans discrimination of pay on the basis of sex.

In 1964 she supported the Civil Rights Act, and in 1973 she became the first woman granted tenure at Columbia Law School. In addition in 1973 she supported the Roe vs.Wade case which went to the Supreme Court on reproduction rights. In 1980 Ginsburg was placed on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In 1993, she was appointed to the United states Supreme Court by President Bill Clinton where she is a liberal bright light on the court today.

Her book is scholarly. It discusses her struggles and goals in life. It mentions her love of her husband, Marty, and having her child, Jane, yet going on with school and her goals. Her success came from determination and her beliefs. Some of her beliefs include: 1) Work for what you believe in. Stand against injustice. 2 ) Pick your battles yet get over anger and disappointments and move on. 3) Don’t burn your bridges. Fight for what you believe in but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. 4) Think about what you want. Then do the work to do it, and 5) Have a sense of humor.

If we all followed Ginsburg as a role model, we would make a better world. The book shows her great courage and clear mind and  positive impact on the nation. I wish her well in her recent battle for life.

I look forward to seeing a new film on her life created in a bio drama that will be out when this article is in print titled,“On the Basis of Sex,” directed by Mimi Leder, starring: Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, and Justin Theroux. The film’s release date is Jan. 11, 2019. You might like to look for it in your neighborhood and enjoy it in Maine!

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Avedon: Something Personal

by Norma Stevens and Steven Aronson

Published by Speigal and Gru 2017

Pages 699 Price $40.

Richard Avedon, born in 1923, who died in 2004, was one of the most important American fashion and portrait photographer’s during the 1940’s through the 1990’s. He was working on a photography shoot for The New Yorker Magazine in 2004, at the time of his death from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Avedon lived an unconventional and creative life. His greatest muse was Audrey Hepburn, whose photographs he considered his best works. However, he is famous for photographs of: Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Isabella Rossellini, Suzy Parker, Jackie Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy as well as the famous scholar Edith Hamilton, to name only a few. Avedon was known for capturing a spontaneous moment in his subject matter and capturing the essence of their characters.

One of the many high points of his career was a fashion photography exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York covering the period between 1947 and 1977.

His creativity in presenting an appealing image was so great  that it became an asset to corporations who hired him like Calvin Klein. However, he was also criticized by some in the art community because he allowed his work to be used as advertisements for corporations. Yet his photographs helped make products and corporations famous.

His work for Vogue and Vanity Fair is legendary but his great interest was seeing his work hung in museums. “Avedon felt that a curator’s relationship with an artist is protean – parent, psychoanalyst, judge, protector, and sometimes antagonist.”

Many in the art world know the importance of a curator who knows how to hang art and can bond with the artist. A poorly hung exhibit kills an exhibit. Avedon had met many curators in his career but the most outstanding curator he felt was the Met’s, Maria Morris Hambourg. He thought of her as a “collaboration of heaven complete with the occasional thunderclap and lightning bolt.” He loved the exhibit of his work at the Met, in 1977 which she curated.This book reveals unusual insight into the goals, private creative struggles, and personal fears of Avedon with warmth and intimate knowledge.

Many photographs of personal friends during Avedon’s photography shoots are interesting. Artistic endpapers of photo portraits of Avedon, as well as an attractive cover photo of Avedon taken by Alen MacWeeney, a well known irish photographer, are spellbinding. The book is written by Norma Stevens, Avedon’s  studio director, who collaborated with him on projects for many years, becoming executive director of the Richard Avedon Foundation and Steven M. L. Aronson, a former book editor and publisher. It is written with love and understanding of Avedon as a human being as well as artist.

Avedon would probably be pleased that 15 of his works including three triptychs are now showing at the Portland Museum of Art on the third floor from the collection of Judith Glickman Lauder and will be up through Feb. 17, 2019. You can see examples of Avedon’s work including photographs of Humphrey Bogart, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and John F. Kennedy  to name only a few, at the PMA in that exhibit currently up.

It is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday. In addition, Thursday and Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday. For more information call: 775-6148.

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