a tale that ends with a beet...

Sometimes I use the internet like a meditation exercise, meaning I surf around for stories or images with absolutely no agenda, just sifting through things I like, and inevitably a thread appears and I follow it around. It's funny to look at backwards though, because it's like seeing your thoughts and being able to dissect how you make connections between things.

Exhibit A (to be read bottom-up): not much in the way of interesting threads, but I did come away with: Sand Painting is really great, no? I think I'll try it.

Thread back to India...Kudra... Jitterbug... and beets.


I'm not sure how this image came after the palm tree, but I know it immediately made me think of To Kill A Mockingbird. I have very distinct feelings from my childhood from reading that book and seeing the film. Feelings about the South, which I knew not much about, feeling that eerie, shadowy, black and white, musty atmosphere. Also knowing that there was something happening that I didn't fully grasp. I understood the story, but I think it was the first time I'd really thought about racism and what was just and unjust. It was unsettling and uncomfortable. We used to have 2 cats named Scout and Calpurnia. Scout farted a lot.

I think I was thinking about coconut, as a product. And palm trees. I almost got a tattoo of a palm tree on my arm once. I think it was my West Coast Pride.

Somehow I went to barnacles from the Pont Neuf, maybe the gathering of fabric made me think of clusters of things, but then I really have no emotional connection to barnacles, so I went to periwinkles, which I used to collect ferociously from the beach rocks on Nantucket when I was a kid. We used to pluck them off the rocks and then gently touch the little soft suction foot, and it would recoil into the shell.

More temporary art--Christo. This scale of art never used to make sense to me either, and honestly it still seems like a whole lot of effort. But I'm glad he's out there doing it. I don't love all his work, but I really dug the wrapping of the Pont Neuf. Also how great that French people would stand on it and get into arguments about the meaning of "art"? I love the French.

More temporary art thoughts... Andy Goldsworthy. There's something unsettling about his "holes" series. They seem bottomless.


Then I thought of monks and painting, and thought of sand painting. I found these next two images after that. I never used to like the idea of creating something so meticulously with the knowledge that it's impermanent. That used to scare me. But now I find it oddly comforting. I think I've been living with the notion of wabi-sabi for a while, and it's starting to sink in.

Then this really great painting came to me... I like it when people paint moments that are really very mundane and unspectacular, but find something worth looking at in them... in addition to finding something worth sitting and painting for hours and hours. It also feels very secretly feminine for some reason that I can't explain beyond that there are women in the picture.

Then another Indian Art image followed, which I like because the composition is so satisfying. It's like mid-century modern furniture in Indian art form. If that makes any sense.


It started with thinking about getting a big beautiful art/design book for my sister for her birthday, which led to that great Indian Art book we have in our bathroom... which led to this first image...