complimentary colors broken down a bit 

and a little painting on paper with bright bright colors 

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The two things I appreciate most about my studio are the bookshelves and the mascot.

Here's a new drawing.

a new space to think about new things

 

Before I hung this new push pin friendly area in my studio, all the random imagery I regularly look at was either on crammed here and there or in a stack. Now that there is space to spread it all out, I can see more clearly what's actually on my mind.

Thinking about:

storage containers 

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Joyce Carol Oates (her face, her bookshelf, her husband)

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thin vertical lines
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neutrals with intense color (ongoing fascination)
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a big hunk of black with bright colors below it
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day glo
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thin horizontal lines
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perspective (in conjunction with the storage containers)
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red and off-white tightly woven together

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adventures in magnitude

My little pea brain appreciates the simplicity of this Powers of Ten video. When it's time to peel my face off the glass and gain a little perspective I watch it.  

The narration and music are very 20th century, back when Pluto was still a planet. 

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The Round 

by Stanley Kunitz

Light splashed this morning
on the shell-pink anemones
swaying on their tall stems;
down blue-spiked veronica
light flowed in rivulets
over the humps of the honeybees;
this morning I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
in their second flowering,
my late bloomers
flushed with their brandy.
A curious gladness shook me.

So I have shut the doors of my house,
so I have trudged downstairs to my cell,
so I am sitting in semi-dark
hunched over my desk
with nothing for a view
to tempt me
but a bloated compost heap,
steamy old stinkpile,
under my window;
and I pick my notebook up
and I start to read aloud
the still-wet words I scribbled

on the blotted page:

"Light splashed . . ."

I can scarcely wait till tomorrow

when a new life begins for me,

as it does each day,

as it does each day.

I was recently reminded how much I need poetry in my life.  I return to this one over and over again.  Both the picture and the poem are from "The Wild Braid - A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden."

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first stages....with shadows

 

I wonder when people in Memphis, my neighborhood specifically, started putting iron on every window and door?  If I had to guess I'd say the 70s.  Luckily for me the people that lived in my home for fifty years had good taste.  They picked a beautifully ornate pattern that  cast elegant shadows throughout the day. 

These three paintings are in the armature building phase.  I have in mind where I want each one to go, but seeing them grouped together with these patterns suggest whole new possibilities. 
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orange, yellow, pink

If I approach a painting without a plan but want to get rid of that intimidating white surface, sometimes I'll just paint it pink.  It lightens things up a bit.  

The melons and tomatoes from the farmer's market may need to cross-pollinate with this canvas. 

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Song for Harper Lee #88

This painting is by Alabama artist Brian Edmonds.  Go here
to read an interview he did with me for his blog.  He asked good questions.