My Day Ahead – Nov 11, 2019

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

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  The image opportunity itself was via an evening boat ride my wife Sheila and I took on our so-far only trip to San Francisco a couple years ago.
• Intro: Grappling With Organizing My Series Paintings from My Original Photos into GroupsApril 25, 2026
  My Collections page at Saatchi Art includes collections by style or place plus works in a specific series. Best I can do for now, lol! Hopefully improve over time 🙏 😊
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  “Not only am I grateful to my Brooklyn buyer, but also to Saatchi Art that literally navigated me through the ice-storm prolonged process last month here Austin!”
• New Painting Series – Island Land Trail Sunset Vermont 2026 – Gaining Perspective About My Experience of Painting Doing Series of SeriesFebruary 9, 2026
  It’s a welcome surprise to realize how rich one’s life experience can be, even within seemingly single short time frames themselves! I feel this new small study, with its misty soft blues and distant vistas is a nice reflection of that.
• Voter ID – ReVisiting John R. Lewis’ 2021 Voting Rights Proposal That Failed – What’s Different Now – And Why Not Debate it With the Current 2026 Voting Rights – Together?February 3, 2026
  This is a short post I seldom write up. A political post. Understandly so. There’s a lot of the usual “they” don’t want this or that now talk from this or that political party.
• Are We at Our Kent State Moment? – One by One the Women Came and Said, It’s Time 2026 9×12 acrylic on canvas panel – by Adan – @SaatchiArt 😊January 31, 2026
  “I still vividly remember the images on TV 1970 of students my age shot and on the ground during a demonstration against the Vietnam War”
• 1st Cabin Light Finished Painting 2026January 28, 2026
  Saturations of sky and earth roll and rest spin like a first slow dance in junior high – middle school the grandkids laugh and tell me they think I make all this up just to be funny 😊

Thanks so much everyone! 😊

Adan

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