P.S.

 Made things (the gorgeous crochet hook made from sustainably harvested birch was a gift from my sister)

 "What would she draw tomorrow? A loaf. Roses. More fruit." 

(Madden, Deirdre, Nothing is Black, faber and faber, London 2013, p.151)

There was more about things and in particular artworks-as-things at the end of the book (I loved the ending), and some beautiful paragraphs about life in general, which I won't give away here.

On painting:

"'There are days when what I like most about painting is that you're making something solid at the end of it, and there are other days when I hate it, for that very reason.' [...] 'You work and you work and then you're left with all these things and you don't know what to do with them. It must be great to be a musician creating nothing more tangible than sound.'"

"'But what I love about [painting] too is just that: the energy of things [She goes on to talk about a Vermeer painting and its meaning "beyond words, beyond time"] To take things and make something charged with that sort of knowledge and energy. It's worth devoting your life to that.'" (ibid., pp. 139f.)

"'Painting's a bit like life [...] There's no point in just sitting there thinking about it. You have to get the paint on to the canvas. You may not like what you end up with; it may fall short of what you had thought or hoped it would be - in fact, it usually does. But at least there's something there; at least it's real.'" (pp.141f.)

I brought my paints with me to my mum's house (there are some here, too, but I need certain colours I might not be able to get here) and will start work on two commissions while I am here, with these words, especially the last few lines above, in my head.

~ Happy Christmas to everyone reading this, and thank you for visiting despite my haphazard posting schedule in the past year! ~