Lydia E. Ringwald is a scholar, artist, photographer, poet and a featured lecturer at museum, libraries, universities and on world cruises.
She is frequently invited as a guest speaker on Royal Caribbean cruises to the Mediterranean and the Middle East on subjects in Egyptian mythology, Sphinx – Egyptomania and the Influence of Egypt on the West, Roman Emperors, Art Collections of the Vatican and other destination topics archeology, history and art history.
A Los Angeles native, she has traveled extensively throughout the world, preparing the original text and photography of archeological sites and art treasures for her publication and powerpoint lecture, ‘The Goddess from the Paleolithic to the Present’, tracing the transition of the goddess image through time.
Lydia has been a featured artist in exhibitions at the Karpeles Museum, LA Art Corp and other prominent Southern California art galleries and museums. Her recent painting and mixed media art series ‘The Texture of Time’ is a visual exploration replicating the excavation of ancient artifacts through layers of time at an archeological site.
Traveling through India in electric cars on the Climate Solutions Road Tour, Lydia’s work with students at schools, colleges and universities in India painting murals visualizing innovative energy conservation climate solutions earned recognition in the articles published in the ‘Times of India, ‘Hindustan Times’ and in an Op-Ed for ‘New York Times.’
The Heidelberger Kunstverein for an exhibition on the color ‘Blue‘, published her poem in the exhibition catalogue ‘Blau: Kaleidoscop einer Farbe’.
In her poetry chapbook, ‘Blessings in Disguise’, Lydia traces the many nuances, insinuations and hidden blessings that pin our fragile reality to the evanescent and the eternal.
In her poem, ‘Emblem of Oia’ for the Poets and Dreamers’ Mediterranean collection, Lydia reflects on elements in an afternoon at Oia, on the island of Santorini, an enchanted Mediterranean cruise port-of-call, and the memory of lovers emblazoned together forever on an ancient gold coin.
You can’t take a bad picture in this place
Even if you dropped your camera
And the shutter
Automatically started randomly
Shooting thousands of shots as it toppled down the tilted street
All of the angles of all the photos would be fabulous
Yes, that’s how beautiful this is
Have you ever wandered inside a living artwork?
A hillside of white walls
A silent cascade down a cliff
Dotted with blue domes
Punctuated with maroon tile
A winding cobble stone street
Clattering with charming shops,
Enticing display windows resplendent with exotic jewels,
Diaphanous Grecian gowns, tied with gold braid
Suspended and undulating softly in a gentle wind.
A stairwell leading into infinity
A doorway opening into the sky
A pool at the edge of the cliff
Cutting to the ocean
Blue on Blue
Cantilevered restaurants and cafés
Overlooking the placid sea
A subtle hypnotic shimmer is reflected
Eyelevel in the tiny champagne bubbles on
At the rim of your glass
Our ship lies anchored below
And we view the small motor craft make a rippling route
Back and forth from ship to shore
Encapsulated in a camera,
In an emblematic moment
Entwined in time
We contemplate
Whether we are we the artists or the artwork
You and I
Embraced
Emblazoned
Stamped together in gold
As an emblem
On an ancient coin
For other contributions by Lydia E. Ringwald, please follow the link below:
Poetry in this post: © Lydia E. Ringwald
Published with the permission of Lydia E. Ringwald