This is my favorite piece of neighborhood graffiti. It’s being encroached on, but maintains its sunny disposition.

All the more poignant given its dismal location. We need to make a difference.

I’m also a big fan of Minimalist Elvis. He’s so much more than a hound dog.

I made a pendant yesterday, a new member of the Leaf Collection. I’m enjoying the simplicity of the single, feathery leaf.

I love finding relationships between objects or images. Over time I’ve tucked these four pictures into the frame of my bathroom mirror.

Andy’s group portrait of my class at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts

“Fanny and her kindergarten class mourn the death of the class gerbil”
by Donna Ferrato

“Preacher within the Circle” by Bill Traylor

a postcard titled “Hula Hoop Habit, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1958”

I don’t yearn for freedom: these days I yearn for security. I’m tired of being in between things/jobs/rent-paying gigs, and of the inherent uncertainty. Some days run smooth – a sequence of moments during which I appreciate being in my studio and having the time to explore and make things. Then comes a growly, frightened day when I wake up scared and anxious.

Yesterday I came across the Girl at Play archive, which chronicles Alex Beauchamp‘s transition from executive secretary to freelance writer and artist. It comforts me to read another woman’s creative angst, knowing how successful she’s become. Other people’s life paths appear straight and true when seen from the outside. By comparison my own path is the one walked on by Little Red Riding Hood, darkly shaded by trees and stalked by hungry beasts.

On the E train there was a woman sitting with a shopping cart full of garbage bags parked in front of her. She was shouting, and I was doing my best to ignore her, but as I was about to exit she yelled, “If you don’t long for freedom, don’t come over to Queens: go on back to Brooklyn!”