art inspiration observations

A Dog of Incredible Cuteness

I wanted to write a serious blog post tonight, but I spent so much time mowing lawn today that I don’t have the brain power for it. Instead, I only have energy for posting photos of my incredibly cute dog. (I could say I’m not biased in my opinion of him, but I would be lying.) Don’t dogs make great internet subjects? No worries about violating their privacy or offending them while poking a little…

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art inspiration

Leaves at Como

I am avoiding doing dishes by writing a blog post. Don’t feel sorry for me. I haven’t done dishes in days, so I’m just using that as an excuse to write a blog post, although I really need no excuses to avoid the dishes or to write blog posts. I could also be folding laundry right now. Instead, I’d like to show you some pictures of leaves I took at the Como Park Conservatory just…

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Thoughts on “Putting Work in Its Place”

  I follow Austin Kleon‘s email newsletter, through which he shares various internet pieces related to creativity. In the latest edition of the newsletter, there was a link to an article I found to be especially thoughtful. It contains excellent advice I wish I’d had when I was in high school or college. The article is called “Putting Work in Its Place” by Kate Kiefer Lee. In it she discusses how we don’t necessarily have…

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Wear the Sweater

When the Robin Williams movie “Dead Poets Society” came out in 1989, the phrase “Carpe diem” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec8FOZvcPVM] became all the rage. It means, “Seize the day,” as in none of us is getting out of this world alive – we don’t know when our time is going to be up – it may well be as early as the next instant or tomorrow – and we’d better enjoy it while we can. I often see…

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My Beautiful New 2016 Day Book

It’s that time of year again … time to buy a new calendar/day book for the upcoming year. I’ve been keeping a day book for years and years now, probably since the 1990s, when my sister-in-law bought me my first one. At the time, I was journaling long-hand in notebooks, trying to follow the suggestion in “The Artist’s Way” about writing three pages per day. The long-hand requirement drove me crazy because I didn’t always…

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