I started the day out well, with a swim, then some reading. I'm re-reading Stephen King's Secret Windows, which is more or less a book of essays about writing. I'm a huge fan of SK for many reasons. I don't like everything he writes and I rarely like the last quarter of any of his novels because he has a terrible habit of showing too much of the monster. He knows better---he said so in regards to Dracula, "In that book, if no other, Stoker grasped the fact that shadows always stand taller than flesh and blood." Despite sputtering over the endings I continue to buy his books and read them because the flavor is right and the truth shines through his spooky/fun filter so we get it without hurting our eyes. That's what he's good at, the truth.
Secret Windows is an excellent book to read before starting a new project or for stirring up the creative juices. I'm about to start work on art for the World Fantasy Convention and I consider this my 'mental yawn and stretch' in preparation.

I started reading it last night. I was a bad, bad girl. While reading I munched on a bowl of tater tots that were forgotten in the oven until they were mere cocoons of greasy, crunchy outside with nothing but air in the middle. Eating while reading is a nasty habit. I broke it years ago but made an exception last night because those tots were too deliciously nasty to ignore and because I trust my brother's advice on such. He told me, "It doesn't matter what you do, this time. What matters is what you do overall, the patterns you develop. If you're going to drink, or break a diet or take a risk or be an asshole, do it consciously. Make your decision, be aware of the consequences, then proceed without guilt and with joyful abandon."

My brother is an extremely intelligent human being. In comparison, I am but a gnat.

But now it's morning, I've had a vigorous swim and healthy breakfast. I'm dressed in my summer uniform--a beach skirt and tank that are interesting together if you're an artist but look sadly mismatched if you're not. My hair is pulled up into a wet knot and outside, I see palm trees swaying in the breeze, hummingbirds flitting in and around the feeders and sunlight sparkling off the water.

I'll pour a cup of coffee, tie on my apron and attempt to make something that scares even me. If I can do that here, I can do that anywhere.

New Study in Yellow

This was a truly warm day, a first portent of what lies ahead. Yesterday we hid eggs, cooked, ate way too much chocolate. There were kids running amuck. There were sticky Peeps with beady black eyes.

Today was mostly for catching up. Tomorrow will be for more catching up. Yes, your artist is playing whack-a-mole again. Sheesh.

so, a few notes, to catch up with you...

The Little Yellow Poppet, never before seen, has appeared. She makes me feel happy, a study in yellows, like pen and ink illustrations in books I remember fondly.

Pierrot has reappeared, done up in the same layered painting style, so that he looks most excellent with the new theater Poppet Marcelle and in the plethora of new masks we're busily working on for the whole troupe.

It seems I'll be Artist G of H at the World Fantasy Convention in October. I'll put up a link as soon as the information is posted on their site (my fault, yes. they're waiting for me to send stuff) but in the meantime, the convention is in San Jose and has limited membership, so here is your early notice.

And finally, I thought you might like this line from the Isak Dinesen story titled "Sorrow Acre."

The thin grey line of a road, winding across the plain and up and down hills, was the fixed materialisation of human longing, and of the human notion that it is better to be in one place than another.