Petra Clark
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petrabclark.bsky.social
Petra Clark
@petrabclark.bsky.social
1K followers 840 following 240 posts
Special Collections Librarian, former/forever Victorianist (Aestheticism & periodicals), and inveterate cat documentarian. Probably haunting the rare books stacks or stress baking.
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petrabclark.bsky.social
3 weekends, 3 spooky entertainments:

Yesterday, I saw Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" performed by UD's Resident Ensemble Players.
Last Sunday, I saw Guillermo Del Toro's amazing film "Frankenstein" on the big screen.
Two Sundays ago, I saw First State Ballet's rendition of "Dracula."
Closeup of a theatre program for And Then There Were None featuring the silhouette of a hanging woman and a spooky house. Red velvet theatre seating a d a stahe made to took like a fancy living room is visible in the background. Promo image from the 2025 film Frankenstein, featuring Oscar Isaac as Victor looking stern and pulling on red leather gloves. Jacob Elordi as the Creature looms behind him. Theatre program for the Dracula ballet, featuring a swooning man with three women looming over him, set against a red background.
November 9, 2025 at 10:00 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
Bright chrysanthemums decorate Theo Nieuwenhuis' otherwise monochromatic design for November 1896. Fall is in full swing, but winter is close behind! 🍂
Two large orange flowers with many spiky petals sit in circles at the top of a calendar page otherwise decorated in grays and black: a frame of gray leaves, buds, and decorative borders surround the grid, with snail shells lined up in the last column.
November 1, 2025 at 3:49 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
It may be November, but it's not too late to enjoy Nieuwenhuis' moody blue grapes for October. 🍇
A calendar page with a thick border comprised of dark blue grape leaves and vines, and lighter blue grape bunches touched with pale yellow.
November 1, 2025 at 3:23 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
Happy Halloween!

Here's a spooky little pop-up display that I put together in Special Collections this week, featuring ghosts, witches, vampires, and monsters of all varieties. 🧡🖤
A flat glass display case containing a selection of books, ranging from the seventeenth century to roughly contemporary.
November 1, 2025 at 12:14 AM
petrabclark.bsky.social
A butterfly from August's calendar page has fluttered over to September's, settling in among the tansy leaves.

Theo Nieuwenhuis, Kalender voor 1896
A calendar page for September is framed by silvery fern-like leaves and golden yellow button-shaped flowers. A yellow and white butterfly sits near the bottom of the frame.
September 2, 2025 at 5:19 PM
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#Caturday bird-watching 🌻
A gray cat in a raised cat bed and a black cat on the arm of a chair sit facing away from the viewer and looking out a sunny windoe at tall sunflowers. A male goldfinch perches on the back of a drooping sunflower head, his mouth full of a seed.
August 30, 2025 at 8:22 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
August is nearly over, and I just realized I never shared this month's Nieuwenhuis calendar page! Here are some delicate wood sorrel plants and butterflies all the way from 1896. ☘️
A calendar page for August features a spare grid design decorated with light green plants. They have clover-like leaves and yellow buds. At the top are two stylized white and yellow butterflies.
August 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
Also, lest the anniversary go unremarked, July 27 was Billie's 5th Gotcha Day!
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

From scraggly stray to pampered prince:
A skinny black cat on a porch stares at the viewer from the other a glass door, looking somewhat forlorn. The same cat, now fluffy and filled-out, sits on top of a pile of books in a living room.
August 8, 2025 at 8:21 PM
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Happy #InternationalCatDay! 😻

Here are my two, Billie and Iggy.
A fluffy black cat lies on a green velvet sofa surrounded by blankets and pillows. He looks alert but cozy. A gray cat sits regally on a table in a sunny dining room with an open laptop in the foreground.
August 8, 2025 at 7:53 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
July, what a concept. Please enjoy Nieuwenhuis' bouquet of lilies from 1896, with strange fish, plants, and possibly tentacles filling in the negative spaces.
A calendar page for July is topped with three white lilies, whose stems and leaves take up most of the border, with fish, plants, and other small details appearing between them.
July 1, 2025 at 8:20 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
I had a lovely time at the #RBMS25 conference and visiting Yale for the first time. As anticipated, it's a beautiful campus with amazing collections. Now, onward to Massachusetts!
"Vesuvius in Eruption" watercolor by Turner at the Yale Center for British Art. The painting is rendered in luminous oranges, browns, and blues, the center of the eruption bright with heat. Interior of the Yale University Art Gallery: A gothic revival hall with tall bright windows to the right contains a number of vitrines filled with Greek pottery and beyond that plinths hold various marble heads. Interior of the Beineke Library: six stories of glass-encased rare books stacks loom at the center of a large open space inside a building. A page spread from the Voynich manuscript at the Beineke, featuring drawings of plants and indescipherable script.
June 27, 2025 at 4:47 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
Billie has been my little shadow ever since we got back home. 🖤
A fluffy black cat sits on a white blanket on someone's lap, his eyes closed in contentment. A fluffy black cat lays on his back with eith his head upside down and his paws curled above him, gazing lovingly at the viewer.
June 22, 2025 at 8:43 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
Bonus post from Madrid: This lovely little sign was pasted on the wall above a cat cafe/shelter called La Gatoteca. 🐈‍⬛️🐈
A black and white paper poster is pasted above a security sign. It features a black cat and a tabby cat snuggling together on a cat bed and reads "all cats are beautiful."
June 22, 2025 at 8:12 PM
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Spain trip, day 11 & 12: June 17 was our last day in Spain, so we did some more wandering around Madrid & two more museums: a small museum on the history of printing (Imprenta Municipal) in the morning & then the Prado in the afternoon. The next day, we departed again for the US--adios España!
A large white room contains several antique and vintage printing presses. A table stacked with old paperbacks sits out on sunny street with trees and an ornate building in the background The front facade of the Prado museum, a large light gray Neoclassical building, with nunerous pedestrians walking around the front. The interior of a bar with a taxidermy bill head on the wall and numerous framed photos and posters of bullfights.
June 22, 2025 at 8:03 PM
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We almost left the Reina Sofía without seeing the special exhibition on the Canarian painter Néstor Martín-Fernández de la Torre, but I'm so glad we didn't as it was probably my favorite bit! I was unfamiliar with him before, but was fascinated by his highly detailed and enigmatic works.
Berenice by Néstor: On the right side of the painting, a naked woman reaches up to embrace a naked man on a tall black horse. In the background, a fire-lit nightime landscape spreads out. One of Néstor's Sátiro del Valle Hesperis paintings: a satyr with large curling horns looks contemplatively to the right with his chin in his hands. His body is various shades of warm brown while his piercing eyes are bright blue.
June 22, 2025 at 7:48 PM
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Spain trip, day 9 & 10: We departed from San Sebastián on June 15 and drove back to Madrid. On our first full day in the city, June 16, we covered quite a lot of ground--despite the 98° heat!--from sightseeing around the Royal Palace and Temple of Debod to visiting the Reina Sofía art museum.
Mercado de San Miguel: The crowded interior of a bright, high-ceilinged market hall. Madrid's Royal Palace: a large white Baroque pallace looms against a pale blue sky Madrid's Temple of Debod: a three-part Egyptian temple stands in a sunny square surrounded by trees. Picasso's Woman in Blue: a woman wearing an embellished white and black dress with a huge pale blue bow at the throat and a large hat decorated with flowers, sits looking imperious.
June 22, 2025 at 7:35 PM
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Spain trip, day 8: On June 14, we traveled into the French Pyrenees for a scenic railway trip up La Rhune, though somewhat dampened by fog & rain. However, the experience & seeing the native Pottok ponies was still fun! On the way back, we visited the Spanish border town of Hondarribia.
A green valley is spread between rocky foothills, half shrouded in fog. A large red and white telecommunications antenna is just barely visible through the fog at the top of a rocky summit. A few people walk around the surrounding pathways and staircases. A brown and white spotted pony stands grazing near a stone path while two dark brown ponies stand further back among the rocks, somewhat obscured by fog. A stone-paved square is surrounded by quaint old buildings, many with colorful shutters and balconies in shades of blue, green, and pink.
June 21, 2025 at 1:22 AM
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Spain trip, day 7: June 13 was mostly a rest day, but we took an evening trip to the nearby town of Astigarraga for dinner at Asterbe, one of its famed Basque cider houses. I got to pour the cider straight from the barrel myself and had it with the traditional salted cod--both were delicious!
A dim room with bright yellow walls and a wet floor houses a row of large wood barrels. A piece of white fish sits in the middle of a white plate surrounded by a herbed oil drizzle and topped with thinly sliced green peppers and crispy fried onions.
June 21, 2025 at 12:16 AM
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Bonus pics from Santa Clara Island of some of the baby seagulls there (taken from a safe distance so as not to scare them or their parents). ❤️
Two white and brown-speckled baby birds huddle together on the ground next to a wooden fence, facing away from the viewer. A white and brown-speckled baby bird sits on the ground with his feet splayed in front of him and his mouth open, begging for food from his nearby parents.
June 19, 2025 at 7:57 PM
petrabclark.bsky.social
Spain trip, day 6: On June 12, we visited the San Telmo Museum of Basque Society and Citizenship to learn a bit more about the history of San Sebastián and the region, then took a boat tour out to Santa Clara Island in the bay.
Interior of an old Gothic style church with large 20th century canvases hung on the walls. The paintings depict scenes related to Basque history and are rendered in shades of yellow and black. A display of Basque women's headdresses of various styles in the San Telmo Museum. View from the top of Santa Clara Island (with some of the many seagull inhabitants) across a bay to the green hill of Urgull and the old town below. A steep stone path with stone walls leafs to the top of a tree-covered hill on Santa Clara island.
June 19, 2025 at 7:53 PM
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Spain trip, day 5: Despite the hot and humid weather on June 11, Andrew and I hiked to the top of Monte Urgull in San Sebastián to explore the historic fortifications and enjoy the views.
View of a curved bay filled with boats and lined by yellow sand beach and a city beyond. Old stone steps crusted with orange lichen lead up into the trees; a man climbing them is nearly at the top. A smiling woman stands in the corner of a low stone wall with a view of a bay and city behind her. Bright pink and purple fuschias grow wild on a verdant hill.
June 19, 2025 at 7:43 PM
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Spain trip, day 4: On June 10, we drove to the Txomin Etxaniz winery in Getaria for a tour and a tasting of their Txakoli wines, then on to Zumaia to admire the flysch cliffs.
A table covered in a green tablecloth bears a large basket of crusty white bread, two plates of fish in oil (tuna and anchovies), and a line of glasses with white wine. A view of grapevines in the foreground with hazy green hills leading down to the sea in the background. View over a sandy beach nestled into a pocket of large gray cliffs. Large gray cliffs with verticle layers loom out of the sea.
June 19, 2025 at 7:36 PM
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Spain trip, day 3: Our first full day in San Sebastián, June 9, we explored more of the city, ate more seafood (of course), and visited the aquarium.
A pedestrian street lined eith old white and tan buildings leads to a baroque chapel at the end. A glass tunnel showcases fish and sharks swimming on the other side of the glass. The interior of a gothic revival church, the stained glass casting colorful shadows on the light gray columns. A lion-shaped metal mail slot for local mail, indicated by a sign underneath it reading Donostia-San Sebastian.
June 19, 2025 at 7:29 PM
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I've just returned from a 12-day trip to Spain with my in-laws & finally posting pictures!

Spain trip, day 1 & 2: On June 7, we arrived in Madrid & the next day, we drove 4.5 hrs to Donostia/San Sebastián in Basque Country, home base for most of the trip.

More photos in subsequent quote posts! 🇪🇸
A field of bright red flowers shot from a fast car. A lush green mountainous landscape shot from a car passing over a bridge with bright blue guardrails. View of French doors leading out to a sunny tiled balcony with floral patterned railings, which overlooks a street lined with late 19th and early 20th century buildings. Ornate white railings line a wide, gently flowing river, with golden Belle Epoque buildings on the other side and low-hanging clouds above.
June 19, 2025 at 7:21 PM
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Happy June! Storks stalk through a dreamy blue and black wetland in Theo Nieuwenhuis' calendar for 1896.
Three black and white storks stand in turquoise water surrounded by gray trees and black climbing vines. Above them is a calendar for June with moon phases along the sides. Some orange berries match the beaks and legs of the birds.
June 3, 2025 at 4:55 PM