Crazy fun

Morning Light

(Work in progress)

Acrylic on canvas

8 x 8 inches

Barbara Muir 

I've been thinking a lot about how blessed I am,
how rapidly life changes, and how I wish some
things could stay the same.  Maybe that last
nostalgic note is in response to the frost's
final demolition of most of my garden.  Then too,
it's almost a year now since I was in Florence, and
as I write this on my husband's computer at the other end of
the house so he can sleep without listening to
my typing, amazing photos of Florence
and Sienna are flashing under the blog
composition screen.

Today was a great day at school -- one of the kind
that make it clear why I teach, and why it matters.
My students were funny, engaging and dramatic,
a complete treat. On the home front after supper, I sat
down again to do a bit more on this painting.  When I
stand back from it, I see that it's coming together.  Good.
Up close it's a complicated puzzle. I have no trouble
painting on a large canvas with a four inch wide
brush; when I'm painting small I have to overcome
a feeling of constraint.  It's partly psychological, and
partly that I miss the swing of the big brush, the
expansiveness of a large canvas.

My dresser top, like my mind, is clotted with memory.
Does it even make sense to have so many photos
of my sons as babies there, plus my alarm clock, which
 will harang me all too soon, and the antique porcelain jug
 from France, the most elegant piece in my china collection?
  No.  Someday I promise to change the arrangement.  But
 not yet please -- I'm painting it.

Have an enjoying-your-jumbled-life day.