Today

Woke early. Need an equally early breakfast today. Taking Sheila to Gold’s Gym, then I head over to my 1st showing with Creative Arts Society since 2010 w/2 paintings. If I can head back soon enough to Gold’s Gym I might be able to catch a new SilverSneakers Stability class there & try it out. After, we make a return trip to Olive Garden after several years lapse for their special annual Veterans menu-offering for Veterans Day. With my new post-surgeries appetite, I’ll especially appreciate their bottomless soup and salad option ❤️ Then another stop, this time Walgreens, and finally home, to batten down for the afternoon’s freeze-bringing temps & winds! Maybe a little painting, hopefully a little walking, even if at the fitness center – we’ll see 😊

Yesterday

Listening to the quiet outside this morning, that stilled lull when opposing winds have equalized. The north wind will win we think later today. Meanwhile, Sheila and I leisurely drove ourselves to near exhaustion yesterday, ie, we were ready-ready for bedtime, lol!

(chores, art, creativity)
Today’s Yesterday in Pictures shows but a bit of it, I just didn’t think to snap pics of all the food samples at Central Market (too busy eating, lol!) Or much of anything til I was back home early afternoon for a full day at home.

I did prep final prep of my paintings for a new Creative Arts Society show I’m delivering to tomorrow morning. Test drove my new 1/4 oval mop on my seemingly perennially in-progress painting (which is okay, it’s still exploring and expressing ❤️) and finally tested out my new art projector with my newly arrived hdmi adapter.

I set everything up exactly as described, rechecked everything, and – with mini instruction manual in hand – went through the process. Several times. Many times. No signal. Unplugged and replugged and retried. Same result. I finally acknowledged it wasn’t gonna happen, packed everything back up, and sadly set up to send it back.

The newly arrived hdmi adapter I decided to keep, since it’s likely I’ll need it again for something else. I painted a bit with the last of good light, and called it a night. Time enough for a much needed hot bath, set the dishwasher to do its charm, and gave myself permission for a few minutes reading.

(reading / absorbing Notan)
Notan, is still my reading-in-progress, and am through chapter 1, and ready to start reading (doing?) the design exercises projected to awaken my (in my words) inner Notan 😊

I am very much enjoying the image examples and thesis, but beginning to disagree that there’s a total separation of what primitive people created – like for ceremonies, and designs in modern life – like razor blades.

That so-called primitive folks had a tighter connection to nature, and thus primal design impulse, in general, yes. That today there’s so much more freedom of how and what to design one must “work harder” and more consciously about creating a “gestalt”, a feeling, in effect a design, again yes. That today’s designs, though because utilitarian for (usually) money making purposes, are inferior to designs early people created for ceremonies, because they weren’t utilitarian, seems off, even if just a bit, I think.

My sense is, early people’s ceremonies, even if invested with more awe and appreciation for the forces of nature and fate around them then we folks today, with concerns for (example) shaving (and thus designs of blades for shaving that work and hold up), probably felt their ceremonies were quite utilitarian to them, ie, “designed to be useful or practical rather than attractive” – attract a good harvest, ward off evil spirits, insure a good reception in the afterlife.

Though, my true sense is, a true contemporary designer, like the ceremony designer of times past, will just as often create as attractive a design as practical that also gets the job done.

Why?

One, because nature seems to be repetitive in it’s formation-inclinations so to speak, from snow flakes and arteries in lungs, to diamonds and branches in trees, from eyes that see to spirals of galaxies.

And two, because attractive designs sell. They sell products. They sell feelings to be held close by to remind us of those same feelings each time we see those products.

Making something that makes us feel good, long term, vs punitively addictive and short term, is, I believe, part of what art is about.

Is it designed to be useful vs attractive?

Or —

Are positive emotional experiences and states of mind useful?

Are positive emotional experiences attractive?

Yes. And yes. 💕

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My Latest Blog Posts

• Easy Morning – New Watercolor #FigureArt on Absorbent Ground, May 2020June 1, 2020
  Easy Morning, new watercolor on absorbent ground 6×6 gallery wrap canvas #figureart My newest figure work had the usual tug and pull process painting it 😊 I really like the soft gentle feel of it, and especially like the look my wife got seeing it ❤️
• At Rest With Nature – New Watercolor on Absorbent Ground, May 2020May 29, 2020
  At Peace With Nature has several firsts for me. One, it’s a 5×7 stretched canvas, another size like my recent 6×12, A Walk Among the Wildflowers, I haven’t done in quite awhile, certainly even further back by maybe even decades, lol! It’s an interesting size, being small, yet enabling and enhancing the sense of length or height, like the 6×12, but more subtly.
• Aging Through Covid-19, May 27, 2020May 27, 2020
  Personal Transitions During Stay-at-Home Distancing No BIG in the typical sense of what I tend to think “big” life change/transitions are, but with no blog post for 5 or 6 days, I gave up figuring out the exact # of days, lol, I felt compelled to say a little something.
• Aging Through Covid-19, May 26, 2020May 26, 2020
  Photo Lessons for Dummies by BE KITSCHIG is a superb humor laden look at the all too common pitfalls and inadvertent mistakes we all non-professionals make with our cameras 😂
• A Walk Among the WildFlowers – New Watercolor on Absorbent Ground, May 2020May 22, 2020
  As one can tell by my photo below, I took a few liberties, but to some extent, that happens whether I plan it or not, lol 😂 But I like the result too much to alter anything on it. Another version, another time, will elicit a different response, and I do think this is one motif I’ll want to do more of, vs variations for just practice 😊
• Aging Through Covid-19, May 20, 2020May 20, 2020
  A bit of news out of my home state of Texas. For the past decade, the two main political parties of that state have battled in and out of court in regard to things vote related. Actually seemingly everything vote related, lol!
• Covid-19 Visit to Lady Bird Wildflower Center May 2020 💐May 19, 2020
  First trip I can think of for Sheila & myself, much less with Max, since maybe pre-Covid! 💕 Short, less than 2 hours, and less than 15 minutes from home, but what a treat! 😊

Thanks so much everyone! 😊

Adan

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