art inspiration

The Van Gogh Chair

I’m not sure what it is about this chair, but it reminds me of a Van Gogh painting. Perhaps it’s the slight lean or corded seat or general tattiness, but it looks like something Van Gogh would put in a painting. (I can even imagine it in thick brushstrokes and vivid colors.) Hubby and I were taking pictures of inventory for our business this morning. We purchased a great lighting set that came with 3…

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art inspiration reading

Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking

Amanda Palmer is a musician, but that’s not how I know of her. I first heard of her through Neil Gaiman’s online journal. Neil is a writer of strange and glorious tales of gods come to earth and secret doorways to places and beings outside of this world. (Hard to capture his work in a brief sentence, but that’s my stab at it.) My intro to his work came not through his acclaimed Sandman series,…

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art design inspiration reading

Reading Textbooks for Fun

You know you’re long out of college when you read textbooks for fun. It helps when you can choose your own textbooks and when they are particularly attractive. I’m currently reading “Designing Brand Identity” by Alina Wheeler. It discusses the ins and outs of what it takes to brand and re-brand organizations. What’s great about the book is the spare amount of writing to convey what brand designers need to know. The cover and layout…

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inspiration thought fodder

I’m a Fence-Sitter

Do you ever get so taken with a song that you have to listen to it ad nauseum until you burn it into your brain? That’s the way I feel about Tim Minchin’s “The Fence”. Minchin is a musical comedian or comedic musician (one of those Creative Hyphenates that belong to the World Creative Hyphenate Club … and if there isn’t such a club, there ought to be). He’s smart as a whip. I kinda…

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inspiration

My son Ian, the artist

This week, my husband Erik, son Sebastian, Erik’s sister Jill, and I made a trip to North Dakota State University in Fargo to see my son Ian’s final senior art show. He exhibited his work along with several other students in what is known as the Baccalaureate exhibit. We got a sneak peek of Ian’s work some months ago during a smaller exhibit, so we knew that the project he was attempting was ambitious. The…

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