new work
playing with water
inspired
I love the way black paint or ink looks when touched to a puddle of water. I never tire of watching the patterns and shapes emerge....
​Art holds the world together. x

Again.
Fresh start fresh day fresh year. 
Life has been feeling heavy for me. I am ready to change things.
The quiet winter mornings are my favorite. 
I am making some new art that I really quite like.  and writing a lot. 
perhaps a book. perhaps not.   happy new year.

Hi. Hey, small businesses forever! I love them.... and it makes being a consumer so much more satisfying. Today is something called 'small business Saturday' wherein small independently owned businesses try and get more people to experience them. I've always prefered them to large corporate businesses anyway, Its just better for me. 
And now I have a tiny small biz, so to speak, called Barnwords,
It's not a brick and mortar, but it is a shopping experience. Currently I have product at another small area business, a gorgeous nursery/barn called Northwind perennial farm.
I think small business Saturday is great, but it's not just for Saturdays. Go small!

i love the light coming in and illuminating that little cobweb. <3   

isn't this an interesting thing.? it looks like it could be a whole little world in there.... its actually dried up roots/dahlia tuber, i believe.  i love how it looks. 
things that remind me of other things. 

 I absolutely love how tulips decay.
It is often more beautiful than their actual prime time flowering. I have been drawn to dead and dying flowers for as long as i can recall. I love seed heads and perennials in the late fall and winter...I think they are most lovely just before they die.
Of course, they are not really dead though....just resting.
Imagine if we saw people this way! More attractive in old age than ever! What a world THAT would be.  ha.

How interesting. I've had this Mertensia for years and it's never looked this vibrant and healthy. My tulips have moved around in the ghetto garden as if to say-This is where I want to be.     Home....where I want to be lift me up and turn me round....
 Spring is the most beautiful and exciting time in the midwest. I never tire of it.
and WHY oh why do people spray to kill dandelions?? Why do they not like sweet yellow flowers dotting the lawn?? I am so perplexed by it and will never understand.
Happy beauty from the GG.   (GGs.;)

I've been painting randomly. and by randomly I mean there is no thought out plan, I just sort of do what I feel like. Its quite a freedom, this experience.
​ These are older signs that never sold and I don't love them so time for a makeover! Check the photo gallery for more and let me know if you like them.

every once in awhile I like to look through my bookshelves and randomly pick out a book to peruse. It's a fine way to keep myself acquainted with the fine assortment of reading material in my life. Today I looked at Keep Going by Austin Kleon.  It is one of those books that seems to offer a ton of wise advice and a slew of interesting information/artists, regardless of how many times I read it.
so thank you www.austinkleon.com
​today I make gifts.

bookstores. 
I have enjoyed the supreme contentment of being in bookstores since I was a very little girl.
My mother would take us into Krochs & Brentanos or Brainard's Books, while shopping, and I could have spent the day there. I do realize that even writing that sentence, my privilege is obvious. 
Libraries are their own version of magic certainly.... but bookstores.... the beautiful covers all displayed on shelves and tables...comfy chairs...magazines! so many magazines I'd never seen in my life. Even the smell was pleasing.  Oh the joy.
Earlier this week I came across a Barnes & Noble and I guess I was surprised because I thought they were all gone...like the Borders of my younger days.
I went in and was immediately transported to that B&N feeling of my youth. It was so good.
I bought one book (applaud my restraint, people!) and looked at dozens.
​ but the real reward was that feeling.