Summer allows for the garage door to be open to the light and heat blasting in full force adding to the carefree studio vibe I like best. I often have no real plan before I pick up a brush, instead allow the piece to speak to me. Inspiration comes as it does with movement and color. Other times it lingers so I sit on the stool and just take in the view. Somedays it’s all about the myriad of blues I can blend, other days straight up orange rules. You just never know what will kick off a painting session. But that’s the very definition of inspiration, isn’t it? Could be a spark or flash or sorrow or pain or image or song or laugh or cry. You just never know. The only real surety is to have a brush and paint on the ready, and get straight to discovery. Beyond that any surface with suffice. “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.” – Helen Frankenthaler

Nine Cent Girl readers might remember when COVID took over the summer of 2020 and we all discovered you could have cases of wine delivered, actually you could have everything delivered, even paints and brushes and canvases, but you could also wander around your neighborhood in a way you never took the time to do, leisurely, which I did daily and wrote about in detail. And in the meandering you found all sorts of new things, like paths through the woods or that ducks have a string of ducklings that swim in these mostly straight lines, but you for sure notice that people leave all sorts of stuff by the side of the road. You also find ideas that you didn’t ever take the time to think through too but it was the stuff that caught my eye that I want to remind you about. That first stuff became inspirational. Started me on table tops. Tables mean nothing to most folks but I couldn’t stop thinking about end tables or coffee tables or plant tables, you get the idea, all tables were gold to me. Scrap wood was like a demanding muse, the inspiration to create another table consumed hours of my sheltering in place. “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” – Anaïs Nin

Blasting one after another in a frenzied delight of moving color that I will not put into words. I mean I just don’t want this to only be about words.

But as color hit wood, a bench was born from from an old kitchen cabinet door.

A coffee table from the top of a discarded desk.

A leaner that might be a table or as the name suggests just leaning somewhere.

Eventually, every space in our home that could accommodate a table was filled with them. So I thought, why not package one of these up to send to someone who likes a splash of lightness in their home? That someone said yes. As luck would have it, I followed this first table out to California and saw it installed as the perfect entrance table.

Of course this table went to a special guy who not only helps his world dance but lives with love on the ready. He’s a fan of swirling color too.

“I dwell in possibility.” – Emily Dickinson. What a good place to reside, right? Message me if you are interested in a table. I really have created a pile to share with y’all.

Inspiration to Instillation feels good. Website coming soon!