Eliot's sculpture

I haven't had much brain space for creativity lately, but I spend a lot of time with creative kids. This is Eliot's Wednesday morning sculpture. He's 3.

let's make postage

From postsecret:

We've moved on, why can't you?

I found this site today. From their about page:

We embarked on this project about a year ago when we found ourselves surrounded by artwork that seemed to be hopelessly lacking in sincerity, inspiration, and mystery.

WNYC radiolab

I love radiolab and I love that WNYC offers it as a podcast. Each time I hear one I think about it for days. The last one I listened to is Beyond Time. A portion of the show talked about a painter who makes images of horses, empty plains and a young girl. The episode talked about his memories of that place.

There was a point in his career when he let go and stopped trying to make beautiful art. At this point, his art became wildly successful and people started to pay him for his paintings. He painted the horse, the plain and the girl for years before he consciously remembered them.

I can't get this out of my mind.

mediocrity

Lately my daytime hours have overflowed with mediocrity and mind-numbing boredom. I will keep the complaining to a minimum. In essence, my summer job is painfully empty of productive tasks and I must sit in 5 m.p.h. traffic for 40+ minutes to and from.

I fantasize about creativity, efficiency, communication, productivity and joy. Every minute of every workday, I sit on my ass and feel angst and yearning to simply do something, anything.

This afternoon I will not take the freeway home. Instead, I will find another path to travel - I will wind through neighborhoods I have not yet explored and likely get lost, then eventually find my way back toward St Paul, whenever I end up getting there.

Later I will make dinner not from a recipe but from my own intuition of what would mingle well together in a pot. I will jump around and wiggle when it's done and has unexpected un-recipe'd flavors.

Tonight I will get out that godforsaken fantastic camera Laurie bought me that I'm so afraid of and take a ton of images.

I will post at least one.

I am tired of this mediocrity.

Sy Safransky's Notebook

From Sy Safransky's Notebook in the current issue of The Sun.

"The muse whispers: don't write like someone who fears death but puts a brave face on it, or tells a self-deprecating joke about it; the world doesn't need another borscht-belt comedian. Don't write like a man who worries that his writing isn't good enough; is it good enough to tell your neighbor there's smoke pouring out of her upstairs window? Don't sit there coughing as her house burns to the ground because you can't think of a synonym for fire."

This one spoke to something I'm working through right now.

Articles in The Sun frequently evoke choked up sensations for me. This one got me especially deeply.