Art begets art.

You know how when a closet or a cupboard get more than a bit out of line so you decide to clean it but to do that you have to take everything out of the closet? So you do, and you start out by putting things nicely somewhere, but then you run out of surfaces and start piling on top of things and next thing you know the entire room looks like a bomb went off? It’s all good in the long run, but in the short term you end up tripping over stuff and breaking a few things.

That is my life right now.

I have spreadsheets and post-it notes and notebooks of ideas. I keep getting more thoughts and ideas and adding them to lists or creating new ones. I am sorting and organizing and continuing to add to the “in process” portion of everything – including paintings – without getting very far as I continue to Tetris the things I want.

One result of this is that I am also going through old files, like the daily photos I take on my morning walks. And there are many photos, over several years, of this garden sculpture:

No idea who did it, or what it is called, or anything like that. And I am too chicken to knock on the door and ask the people who live there. Although I am going to claim it is consideration, since I usually walk early hours.

This year, despite the recent ice storm, it has been walkable outside without a coat right up until New Years – climate change is real, and this year especially weird – and it keeps catching my attention. And sometimes, when something keeps speaking to you, you really have to break down and talk back. While this hasn’t resulted in art for the ages, it has resulted in my actually finishing a painting. I will take what I can get.

So art inspired by other art. That is pretty much our whole lives, isn’t it? This is what I came up with. I am having fun playing with colors.

Also, on a note that has nothing to do with painting whatever:

The last few years have had unintentional reading themes. 2021 was period mysteries. 2022 was magic – witches and shapeshifters and people who see ghosts. 2023 turned out to be a year of mostly modern romances. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part. What is an oddly fascinating trend in modern romances is how many of the characters are vegan. Normally I wouldn’t have noticed, but by the tenth or so you begin to wonder what on earth is going on. Which is a complicated rabbit hole that I am not going into right now.

If you want my top picks, here are a few – and what does it say about me that my picks are not the mostly modern romances? I am pretty sure it isn’t a commentary on veganism.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune 

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan 

Between by L.L. Starling

Okay! So weird thing about these two:

Boyfriend Material and Husband Material by Alexis Hall

I keep rereading them over and over because I can’t figure them out. I mean, they are good – if you want a modern romance the two together are great. BUT.  A while ago I got very excited (and I am still excited – they are one of my favorites) about the Lady Sherlock series by Sherry Thomas (the audio books are also very well done, by the way).

These books have very little in common. They are not the same genre, not the same voice, don’t inspire the same feelings – not obviously like each other in any way. However, they feel the same to me. It is the weirdest thing and I can’t pin it down. Somehow, despite being not much alike, they feel like they have the same texture. Almost like how a red Crayola marker and the Indigo watercolor paint feel the same. How they seem to move or flow in the same way. In this case, an almost distracting, sneaky sort of feeling– like not telling your family you’ve added spinach to a meal or zucchini to the cake.

How many times will I have to reread them before I figure it out, I wonder?

If anyone wants to read them and figure it out for me, I am all for it.  😉