wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

yesterday i took the day off from painting to read poetry and go poke around in antique shops. :) and today has shaped up to be exactly the same. nicey nice! it's alright to take a day off every now and then to enjoy life and see what's going on out in the big, wide world. i picked up a few more antiques photographs and a big burlap basket thingamajig and a totally kitchy "Alice in Wonderland" tin paint palette. total score! and my copy of Rebecca Loudon's Radish King came in the mail too (which is AMAZING! it is on the recommended reading list, for sure!). so, between enjoying beautiful, burning words and treasure-hunting, i had a damn good two days. :)

making time to appreciate the hard work of others is definitely high on my list of priorities these days. there's just so much GOOD WORK out there! every time i make a sale on etsy, i immediately turn around and buy something from another artist on the site. immediately. if i could spend all the proceeds from my little shop on other etsy shops, i would. it's become so important to me to show my appreciation for the work other artists do and to give whatever amount of support and encouragement i can. i know how positively i respond to encouragement and how much it lightens my spirit and strengthens my resolve and persistence. it really is the least i can do to offer that same encouragement to those whose work i admire and believe in. it just enriches my daily living in such tremendous, undeniable ways. i'm so thankful for artists. they make my world go round. check the 'friends and inspirations' link list to the right.

new/old romance...

yesterday afternoon i whiled away a few fast hours at an antique store. a perfect sunday pastime. i picked up a whole bunch of old-timey sepia tone photos, the kind printed on super thick card stock. i've got the beginnings of a new obsession/collection on my hands. but they're beautiful and it makes me feel so bad that they're up for sale, away from their families, tossed aside. so i'm scooping them all up. my new orphanage. i've already got the ever-growing collection of busted up dolls that no one loves anymore. how goth am i! HA! or is it that fatally pathetic "wounded bird" syndrome rearing its manipulative head again? i'm a sucker for the broken and forgotten things of the world. i can't help it, they need a good home. my young, romantic heart taking control of my spending habits... i suppose it could be worse.

crowded...

just passed 7:30 in the morning and i've already slapped enough paint down to make moving forward with any my canvasses fairly impossible. they're all just too wet to be worked any further. bummer. i'm really in the mood to paint but i'm running out of space and don't necessarily want to begin a new painting just yet. although... maybe i should just roll with it. the frenzied, GO GO GO painting mode should always be exploited. and i can tolerate being cramped by art. worse things have happened. besides, my house is generally overrun by artwork and artmess. nothing new there.

yesterday, i took some time out to go poke around in an uncharted antique shop and my hot little hands wanted to bring so many half-broken and unusable wonders home with me! a huge, beautiful, folk, table top vanity, big dusty trunks with busted hinges, victorian photos, old-fashioned wash basins... i am a greedy, greedy girl when it comes to stuff like that. antiques shops and junk shops are dangerous places for a girl like me. i want to give a home to all the busted and broken objects of the world. my home is a strange orphanage, i'll tell ya. but until i clear out some more of the stuff that has been following me around the last few years, i can't allow myself to bring anything else in the door. i found a consignment store to take some stuff but just haven't found the motivation to do it yet. been too busy and in love with painting to allow for any distraction- even the good, helpful, practical kind. could this be the reason why artists generally end up divorced? not allowing themselves to be troubled by practical matters? :) i'm sure it's one of the reasons. ha!