on the way home from buying a watermelon

i was thinking about annie patterson in artic alaska and siri (knitting iris) in montana and how i should blog what i love to see from others--in this case--a sense of place.
our valley is farms--sunflowers, pumpkins, a newly empty potato field, a freshly mown hayfield

Door and Richard Mayhew

so as i am painting, i have been listen to neil gaiman read his neverwhere. (i own a paper copy and read it a very long time ago so this is almost like the first time.) as i listen my illustrator's brain catalogues physical descriptions out of habit and when i heard that Door has auburn hair (not black like in the bbc mini series) i suddenly wanted to draw my version.
(after this drawing i got to a part that mentions that Door's hair is rather short.)

found while researching

"There is nothing as exciting as the wind. New love -- and then the wind. But the wind has always been there. Even before you knew of love, you knew of the wind."*

an ice skating bonnet?

school girls, england 1953

*Rick Bass, Winter: Notes from Montana

two things

"We conversed with our own souls till we lost the art of communicating with other people. The typical family grew up strangers to each other....It was awfully high, but awfully lonesome."*

"I do not really understand what the big hubbub is about linear narrative. Life is not linear....To me, dreams are much more important then daily stories, and I believe we have enough news around us, and way too little dream."**


*Samuel Ward--from a letter after reading Emily Dickinson's poetry.
I found it in the print version of this.

**Stacy Kline, Artistic Director Double Edge Theatre