These roses have been drawn. Unlike real roses, their image will never die. They will wait for us, forever.
Curtia Wright
Much is to be gleaned, at the foot of a grave; more than you know. Roberta Eaton Cheadle takes us to more than one place of eternal rest. She has fifteen tales for us to learn from.
Be it an icy death, in a cold cruel world of the future,
Sumartist
…. or a legend fraught from old wives’ tales, where tables turn in the wretched pit of a spider’s lair, should we be afraid?
Resa – Robbie, in And the Grave Awaits, Whether you have built a story from an old legend or an actual happening, there is something to be gleaned from each: a moral, life lesson or historical fact.
In other books, IE: Lion Scream, your sublime poetry (accompanied by brilliant photography)is filled with nature’s beauty, although animals and environment might cry out.
“A Ghost and his Gold” shows the horror and senselessness of war. Yet, reveals a better nature of man, through its riveting story .
All the while you are teaching about the Boer War.
Your children’s books teach about many things, and are a positive energy.
WHAT DRIVES YOU TO DO THE GOOD WORK?
Robbie – Your question is an interesting one. I am a sensitive person and I see a lot of things that make me feel saddened. On the other hand, I am a very positive person and I usually manage to find the silver lining in life. I think both of these aspects of my personality, the seeing and the positivity, come through in my writing.
I love to share information, photographs, and interesting bits and pieces with other people. It promotes conversations and ignites new thought processes and ideas.
Fondant spider made by Robbie
I think this love of sharing knowledge also comes through in my writing.
I especially like to teach children.
They are so eager to learn and discover.
Beehive cake art made by Robbie
Resa – From what age through adult do you think And the Grave Awaits is cool to read?
Robbie – And the Grave Awaitsis for adults, 18 years and upwards.
Resa – I had to ask because so many movies that are extremely violent and sexually suggestive are rated 14+ these days. When I was a kid, those same movies would have been restricted to 18+ , and we would have to show ID to get into the theatre.
Video games can be wildly violent, sexually suggestive, and seem to have very little parental oversight. This book seems mild compared to the games and movies I am referencing. I hope you don’t think I’m silly for asking. It occurred to me out of the blue, while working on the post.
Robbie– It is a thought provoking question and one I found a little difficult to answer. I listed this book on Amazon as a ‘normal’ adult book. No explicit sex obviously, and not overly dark compared to other books.
South Africa is still a conservative society, but it’s what I know and what I use as a benchmark. My aim with this book was to make people think about historical events and the reasons behind them. My purpose is to remind people what can happen if we don’t retain the human rights our ancestors fought for. People quickly forget the past and don’t know how easily rights can be undermined to the detriment of the ordinary person.
I don’t consider it to be a YA book, although teens could read it, because the characters are not teens. My understanding from what I’ve read is its the age of the characters rather than the content per say, that separates YA and adult.
Resa – I really appreciate your thoughtfulness on this topic. I have read a lot of your books, and have become a huge fan, because of your intrepid stance on what you convey through all of your artistic endeavours.
Following is a selection of street art. As in the first images of this post and in the cake and fondant art of Robbie’s, each image represents a tale in And the Grave Awaits.
Shalak Attack
Mandy van Leeuwen
The Half Decent
Nick Sweetman
If you’ve read the book and can’t figure what an image could represent, just ask in comments. If you haven’t read the book, you’ll have to read it to figure them out!
Robbie is a prolific writer. You can find her books on Amazon sites around the globe. Just search “Robbie Cheadle” for children and youth books – “Roberta Eaton Cheadle” for adult books.
What better time is there to talk about breasts than breast cancer awareness month?
"Boobs. Boobies. Tits. Hooters. Knockers. Jugs. Breasts. We celebrate them; we revile them. They nourish us; they kill us. They have fascinated us since prehistoric times." - Merril D. Smith
I got this book from my local library. I was tickled pink that Merril,a 5 aces poet IMHO, whose blog I follow, put this encyclopedia together. As well as the Preface, Acknowledgements, Introduction and Chronology of Selected Breast Events, she wrote 17 of the entries.
Danae – Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi -1612
Renewed thrice, I approached it a few pages at a time whenever I lounged in my favourite chaise.
I learned a lot of big medical words, and the physiological and the psychological lessons on the breast that comes with that. I also gleaned a lot about breasts in terms of cultural history from: Art to Wonderbra, Barbie Dolls to Slaves as Wet Nurses, Eating Disorders to Hollywood, Flappers to Mythology and 137 other entries.
Old sketch of Resa – unsigned
This book enlightens with a societal purview, that runs through the ages. As encyclopedic entries give only a general overview, each entry is followed by extra and more detailed reading available on each topic.
This is not a picture book, so don’t run out and get it because you want to see lots of images of breasts. If that’s the aim, you might as well just grab an issue of Playboy (an entry in the book & reviewed by said magazine), or visit any online site of breast repute.
However, every so often there is a photo insert that helps make a point. One such picture is a black & white detail of Jean Fouquet’s (circa b.1420 – d.1481) painting Virgin and Child from the Melun Diptych.
I was keen to learn from the encyclopedia that the model for this painting was Agnès Sorel, celebrated beauty and mistress of King Charles VII of France.
Having decided to use a representation of this painting: I went online, found hundreds of pics of it, many variations on it and discovered that you can buy prints of this painting at Walmarts.
I’m wondering – Did Mr. Fouquet actually ever look at Agnes’ breasts, or was one of them growing out of an armpit?
It wasn’t always about big boobs
Breasts actually have a purpose. They were not always culturalized primarily as sexual objects, as they are in modern western culture. Here, much money is to be made in the plastic surgery realm, and the trend has spread to non western cultures. Other times and societies have looked at them differently from practical, to fertility symbols and with different eyes on beauty.
Pink Ribbon Campaigns
.. is one of the entries in the encyclopedia. I found this entry eye opening in a way I hadn’t envisioned.
Two things that stood out, in terms of Breast Cancer awareness, are that:
The Pink campaign began with The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, with the ubiquitous Pink Ribbon becoming the official symbol in 1992. Since then support, awareness and survivorship has increased many fold.
Over the last 2 decades, “Pink Ribbon” products have become big business with little oversight, engaging in “Pink Washing”. So please make sure to investigate where your money is going if donating.
AI
Published in 2014, everything still holds true to today. However, due to rapid changes in technology there is one topic not covered in this encyclopedia. That would be AI’s cultural influence on breasts. I’d love to read what Merril would write about that!
This is Emily Pellegrini. She is the most famous AIwoman in the world, currently. She has Facebook & TicTok accounts.
Merril D. Smith, PhD, holds a doctorate from Temple University.
She is the author or editor of several books including: Encyclopedia of Rape, Women’s Roles in Eighteenth-century America and Sex and Sexuality in Early America.
In a dark second floor bedroom is this fabulous face.
The room was so dark and the colours of the painting so dark that some of the pics came out almost black.
It was quite the shock to my senses,
When I turned 180 degrees around, and saw this.
View of when you come out of the room, to go down the stairs. The black w/ green motif doorway on the right,
….. is a bathroom.
Pics taken by Resa – August 11, 2024
Toronto, Canada
Artists:
LIZ
I told you I had a surprise for you on my stop of your Simple Pleasures book tour. All I had to do was pick 1 Bryan Ferry song. This turned out to be most difficult, overwhelming. Better late than never!
Graffiti Lux Art & More 
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