I feel like I haven’t had a normal week since the Christmas break!  There always seemed to be a snow day, a two-hour delay, appointments smack in the middle of the day, sickness, and just a lot of life stuff that was disruptive to routine.  And, as much as I love winter and even cheer on the snow totals, a big part of me is ready for the warmer days of spring.  I seem to be solar-powered and more light means more home projects are completed.  I come out of my studio hibernation hole and tick more off the list.  I’m looking forward to seeing more birds at the birdbath, seeing perennials come back to life, and seeing the grass green up.

The nice thing about keeping a blog is that I have a pretty detailed record of what I work on and when and I know my project season is right around the corner.

Anyway, here are my favorites from this snowy, drizzly week (although the sun is shining today)…

what I’m reading

I actually started listening to the Daily Rituals audiobook a few months ago and didn’t like it in that format.  Not all of the daily rituals featured in the book are admirable and I preferred to read a physical copy so I could jump around and skip those I wasn’t interested in.  The physical book has been interesting, though, and I read about two or three people each day.  The ones I’ve enjoyed reading about most so far were Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, and Mozart.  I’ve done some reading about Mozart before so I was surprised to learn for the first time that he had to teach piano lessons each day from 9:00 – 1:00 in order to make ends meet.  Who would’ve thought that one of history’s most brilliant composers and talented musicians had to spend four hours a day teaching piano lessons?  I think it’s a pretty good argument against the adage, those who can’t do, teach.  

I also enjoyed the little black-and-white photo of Francis Bacon’s studio.  If anyone felt like my studio was untidy, they likely couldn’t spend a second in his workspace.  It looked like an avalanche of paint, brushes, papers, exhausted paint tubes, and palettes on a completely hidden work surface.  I found a photo online and it’s just unbelievable that anyone could work in a space like that but I suppose that was his creative cocoon and it felt just right.

what I’m watching

Jeff and I added One Life  (you can watch it on Paramount+) to our watchlist when it came out and watched it earlier this week.  It is such a beautiful, quiet movie about the power of ordinary people doing tedious tasks, and making a tremendous impact on the world.  It’s the story of an English banker who helped save hundreds of children who were at risk as Nazi Germany expanded their control over Europe.  He rescued children by processing a mountain of paperwork and navigating bureaucracy.  It is an inspiring story and a good movie.

On a set design note, the mid-century house felt a little jarring for an English setting.  I guess I thought that style, with the sunken living rooms, sprawling walls of picture windows, and split-level floor plan, to be more American than English.  The gardens and pool were lovely to look at, though, and very classic.

what I’m loving

“Creativity is not only the work of great poets, scientists, philosophers, and actors. Creativity is a part of everyday life. Creativity is how we get up in the morning, how we cook dinner, how we interact with coworkers, family, friends, and, yes, strangers. It is bringing to bear insights, imagination, and wisdom to every act we humans perform or dream of. It is a renewing of what has come before in order to make things new. Creativity is not only for the “great ones.”  It is for you and me.  Our own creativity reflects our entering the universal process of living.  It is our participation in creation.” – Robert M Oliva

Let’s strive to participate in creation through our daily, mundane, ordinary tasks.

what I’m working on

Back in the Spring of 2019, I worked on the Index Card Art Project with a couple of my Instagram friends.  You can read about that HERE.  I repeated it again in February of 2020, which you can read about HERE.  In both cases, I painted a mix of master studies as well as quick landscape studies from my own photos.  It was a fun exercise and a nice way to produce some original works that could sell at a lower price point.  To my surprise, I have had several people mention the index card art in the past couple of weeks.  They either missed out on one and wish I would do more or they own a couple and still love them.

As I often do, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to do it again.  I still had a stash of vintage index card dividers, so I started applying gesso yesterday and asked two friends, Michelle Wooderson (one of the index card originals) and Stephanie Lee if they would like to join in.  I would like to extend that invitation to you, too.  It’ll be very unstructured, but I will make some videos and share the process if you’re interested in painting along.  More details to come…

If you’d like to get some index card dividers, here are a few new and vintage ones that caught my eye…

For some reason, I was having trouble linking to some on eBay, but there were lots of good vintage ones to pick from HERE.  More details to come…