grateful... dead?

photos by mona... another one at monster town:)

i woke up feeling very discombobulated. our new ikea dresser is in the middle of the room, waiting for home. my shoulder is pinched. i have a 2 do list that i could write up and down my body... i often write to-do's on my hand so this makes sense to me.

now a sense of calm as the day is growing darker. a sweet chai and a chat with my friend ali to round off the day.

i spent hours this morning trying to put our house back together... still from the ripple effect of open studios, day of the dead costumes on our kitchen floor... a wig in the dishes?!, a week of rushing to and fro piled up. i feel like i could spend months sorting and organizing my belongings and still wouldn't have gotten through it all! why all this stuff?! i don't even have kids! how do you mothers do it?

away with it all!

i think this storing and purging must be a natural process. inspiration saving and then it becomes too much and i want to release it to the world. so similar with my art making.

i put this small suitcase outside in front of my window filled with little characters i drew for an illustration class and a royal throne and psychedelic wallpaper. i wish i could have video-taped people opening it... one tiny homeless woman grabbed the gold throne fiercly and ran off with it like a little treasure. hugh and i were talking about how sometimes we feel like we are in dicken's england with all of the toothless characters abound. how can we live in a time when some people don't have teeth and others whiten theirs??!

ANYway, this post was s'posed to be about gratitude.

i am grateful for being alive. i am grateful for making art from my core. i am grateful for hugh picking up a copy of "dear theo" containing the letters of vincent van gough (after he read on my blog that i wanted it.... that means so much, thank you).

"The figure of a labourer--some furrows in the ploughed field--a bit of sand, sea and sky-- are serious subjects, so difficult, but at the same time so beautiful, that it is indeed worth while to devote one's life to the task of expressing the poetry hidden in them." -Vincent

i am grateful for the depths of grief i have felt that make me a better artist and more joyful. i am grateful for having walked this earth for almost 30 years! i am grateful for the celebration of dia de los muertos.