We had an ice storm last night and into the morning, so Calvin had an “ice day” off school. The roads were just wet this morning, so Jeff still went into work and Marshall went to his college class. It made for a slow morning, though, and a day that felt like it should be a staycation kind of a day! I ended up getting work done, though and took some time to do some meal-prepping as well. I don’t plan everything in detail, but get some staples ready to make lunches and dinners quick and healthy. I made a batch of rice and tried some refried beans for the first time.
I’ve started working on some organizing with just one drawer, the junk drawer in the kitchen, and now I am getting excited to do more! Anyway, here are my four things for this week…
what I’m reading
In keeping with my interest in recordkeeping, I’ve been reading Capturing Nature: 150 Years of Nature Printing. It’s an excellent book about all varieties of making prints of plants, insects, and even some animals. It covers a wide range of techniques from cyanotypes to ink printing to relief methods. Did you know nature printing wasn’t just used for scientific research and aesthetics? It was also used to add intricate detail to US money, which was difficult for counterfeiters to replicate.
It’s a huge book with beautiful photos, many life-size replicas of stored samples, and some interesting nuggets of information.
what I’m watching
Jeff and I enjoy watching shows that highlight the world’s beauty and adventure and we recently tripped across Wunderlust: Europe’s Most Beautiful Hiking Trails on Amazon. I share the bad first… The host is endearing, but he is not going to set the world on fire with his personality and the canned digital music is pretty terrible. None of that really matters, though, because the scenery is so beautiful and the little towns the host hikes through are interesting to learn about. Bradley (of Lonely Planet) likes to take time away from hiking to meet people in towns, hear their stories, and break bread with them. I like his approach to travel and experiencing other cultures. It’s a great show when you just want to see gorgeous landscapes and discover corners of the world you might want to visit.
what I’m loving
“You are what you do. Put another way…
If you think about becoming an artist all the time, then you are a thinker.
If you dream about becoming an artist, then you are a dreamer.
If you read about becoming an artist, then you are a reader.
If you study art, then you are studied.
If you do dishes or vacuum or declutter your house in order to avoid making art, then you are a cleaning crew.
But, if you show up every day and make a little bit of art, you are an artist.”
Mary Jo Hoffman, Still: The Art of Noticing
what I’m working on
This week hasn’t been about picking new projects to work on since I wasn’t feeling the greatest over the weekend and into Monday and Marshall has been home from school and work sick. It’s been the kind of week where I am just focused on the daily things I need to do. Write, paint, do my social media posts, respond to e-mails, follow up with clients, and do necessary business things like reconciling my bank accounts and forwarding tax documents to my accountant.
Sometimes exciting projects are a part of my work and other times, my job is just about churning along in the dailies just like every other line of work.
4 Responses
If you haven’t already, you must read about John James Audubon and his Birds of America prints. It is fascinating!! So much history about categorizing birds into species and then producing prints of all North American birds. His work is gorgeous and was hand water colored. The birds are life size, so a flamingo would take a whole page. Smaller birds would be every kind in a species on one page. They were always depicted in their natural habitats and both a male and female would be on the page as well. The size of each page was 38”x26”. It’s is impressive!
This is a little interesting in one of those serendipitous ways. Last week I started reading a VERY good book by Steve Hoffman called A Season for That. It’s an expat living in France in a small village with his wife and 2 teenage kids. It’s very soulful and nice. His wife is Mary Jo Hoffman who has a blog called Still and coincidentally is the author of your book called Still. She is a very interesting woman, he’s a very interesting man. And you are reading that and I am reading this. I like the coincidentality! (Is that a word??LOL)
Wow! Thank you for sharing that quote from Mary Jo Hoffman. I spend a lot of time thinking and planning my writing (and doing all the other stuff I have to do for my blog) that I don’t spend as much time actually writing as I should do and want to do. This was both a reminder and a challenge, at just the right time.
Thank you, Marian, for your consistent, excellent work. I really enjoy your posts!
The quote from the book — so good. So me.