Lara NeriSep 20, 20193 minWhat is the value in abstract art?This week I took my 7th and 8th grade art students to visit the Modern art museum in Fort Worth. There were a lot of comments such as:...
Lara NeriAug 29, 20193 minDeath & DecapitationI really don’t like thinking about death, but I think about it a lot. It is brought to the forefront of my thoughts by tragic events...
Lara NeriJul 25, 20191 minmy top three favorite museums in LondonThe British Museum - full of brilliant historical art and artifacts - like the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles, and the colossal...
Lara NeriJul 19, 20196 minWhilst Residing at the Palace Court Hotel or "Part Two of My First European Adventure" In the summer of 1995, I made my first trek across Europe. I began by touring England and...
Lara NeriJul 11, 20195 minMy First European Adventure: Part OneThis month twenty four years ago, in the summer of 1995, I made my first trek across Europe. I began by touring England and Scotland...
Lara NeriJun 27, 20196 minNot Arrested in ItalyIn the fall of 1995, I traveled to Italy to study for the semester at the University of Dallas Rome campus, located just outside of Rome...
Lara NeriJun 13, 20195 minMy favorite Russian MurdererMy husband and I have just finished a refreshing three-day class at the Dallas Institute discussing Gogol’s Dead Souls, Melville’s...
Lara NeriJun 6, 20194 minGrandmotherGrowing up my I thought of my grandmother as grouchy and unpleasant. I never looked forward to visiting her and she, in turn, seemed...
Lara NeriMay 30, 20193 minAscending Hero MountainWhen I taught English in China, we were in a filthy, rat-infested village, crawling with giant cockroaches and shrouded in a pervasive...
Lara NeriApr 11, 20195 minFlowery Sunday in ConstantinopleFlowery (Palm) Sunday began to be celebrated in Constantinople by the fifth century - a couple centuries after it began in Jerusalem and...
Lara NeriMar 19, 20193 minSuperheroes & the Triumph of OrthodoxyThe first time I remember seeing an icon was in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. I was taking a class in Israel my sophomore year...
Lara NeriFeb 1, 20192 minSuffering & SofteningThe feast of the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple (2 February) is one of the Twelve Major Feast Days in the Eastern Church, also...
Lara NeriJan 17, 20182 mintea & tiny emperorsThis past summer I was very blessed to be able to participate not only in another iconography class with the Byzantine School of...
Lara NeriJun 22, 20161 minrebirth & regeneration: the image of the snakeToday in our third Tuesday of elementary art camp, we read Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, an African fairytale about a prince who...
Lara NeriJun 15, 20162 minthe iconography of faerytalesWith the collapse of Imperial Russia and the rise of the Bolsheviks in 1917, the art & prayer of icon painting was suppressed....
Lara NeriJun 8, 20161 minbeauty & simplicityThe Japanese have a gift for the pursuit of Beauty. It is apparent in their art, their fashion, their gardening, their tea ceremony. The...
Lara NeriMay 9, 20161 minthe transformative power of storyVarious influences were dropped into my path that lead me into the Catholic Church, one of the most prominent being the work of Fyodor...
Lara NeriMay 5, 20161 minthe feast of St. GeorgeSt. George is a popular saint, renowned for slaying a dragon and saving a princess. He is venerated as a vanquisher of evil and knight of...
Lara NeriMay 2, 20163 mindoing shots for the saintsThe first time I met Babushka, my friend Ira’s 76 year old grandmother, she appeared as a tiny speck in a row boat across the water. As...
Lara NeriApr 26, 20162 mincreating a sacred space in the homeWhen I was living in St. Petersburg, I rented a small, airy room in a sunny, high-ceilinged apartment on the corner of Dostoevsky Street...