March 26, 2026

Holding a book in my hands feels good. I enjoy the weight of a book and touching pages bound inside a front and a back cover. Worlds evolve within those covers. Books are collectible artifacts whose physical characteristics inform one of another story beyond the story told within the book. It is a story about the intellectual curiosity and aspirations of the person inclined to garner the collection.

In my home, on shelves and tables, you’ll find cookbooks, design and other lifestyle books, novels, memoirs, books of poetry, books about gardening, surfing, collecting, creating, writing and more. On many occasions, this variety has sparked conversations and fostered previously unrealized connections even with family. A book collection invites the inquisitive among us to start a dialogue. To coin a phrase: Book collections encourage connections.

Rather than hoard books, I regularly cull books from my assortment and send those selections into the “book universe” for other readers to enjoy. It is very satisfying to know a worthy but no longer wanted book will provide pleasure and inspiration to another owner. Also satisfying is the knowledge that I’ve made space in my collection which I will get to refill. Opportunity and possibility exist in that space because there are always new titles to be discovered and chosen, two tasks I gladly do at every opportunity with immeasurable pleasure.

February 11, 2026

It’s a cold, windy, gray January afternoon. I’m walking my dog on the bluff above East Beach near the 16th beach access path. Below me, on the sand, are a boy and a man arranging fishing gear. Their presence stirs inspiration and I capture this moment in a photograph; save it on my iPhone for later use in my creative work. Days later in my studio I make a print of the photo and use my artistic license to recreate the scene in a painting and a poem. Simple enough if I stop there; but not so simple when observation prompts questions that can’t be answered.

Red Sneakers

Standing near the man
the young boy’s blond curls
ruffle in the icy winter wind that
sprays steely-blue ocean water
over craggy dark rocks
and wobbles the fishing rod
standing in its sand spike.
Seated near the boy
the grown man’s hat hugs his head,
he bends over his task, prepping bait.

Does the man sense
the boy’s watchful closeness?
Does he notice
the boy’s small, pale hands
relaxed at his sides or
how his red sneakers
warm and brighten the dull cold
of this January afternoon?

I’ll never know,
although
my sense of what I see
might be
all that matters.

January 5, 2026

There,
in the days between
Christmas Day and
New Year’s Day,
savoring quiet,
anticipating closure,
a slow, deliberate pace
moves me through each day
as sun and moon
rise, set,
days disappear,
six becomes five becomes four
until no more,
all done.

There,
back at one,
on the first of another year
around the sun,
I ask myself,
“Now, what will come”.

December 15, 2025

so much depends on
remembering
a handheld red transistor radio
given with love,
from brother to sister,
one Christmas
long ago.  

so much depends on
remembering 
a handheld red transistor radio
given with love, simply,
selflessly,
one meager Christmas
long ago.  

so much depends on
remembering 
a handheld red transistor
radio, given with love, playing
still
in heart and mind
this Christmas,
as it did
one distant Christmas
long ago.  

so much depends on
remembering
a handheld red transistor radio,
given with love,
when we were young,
and unaware of what would come,
years after we shared
that special Christmas so very, 
very, long ago.

November 25, 2025

On November 22, 2025 I spent the day selling my art at a juried artisan/craftsman festival because my wise and beautiful daughter convinced me to send in an application. When I was notified about my acceptance into the festival, I felt happy and nervous.

Creating my art is easy because creating is solitary. I am alone in my studio when I shape my stories, my vision, with paint. Creating is safe. Putting my art out into the world to sell is hard because selling is gregarious. It invites the public to peruse and ultimately judge my art and therefore my vision. Selling is unnerving. Even more unnerving is selling my art at an event where my interaction with the public is expected and necessary. I much prefer to drop my art off at a gallery or shop and leave the selling and interacting to someone else.

I am thankful to say that my day spent at the festival, with my daughter’s help and support, was very satisfying. Not only did I sell many, many paintings, but I met and had meaningful interactions with a variety of people. Their remarks and insights enriched me. I felt validated as an artist, brought home a renewed sense of vitality for creating, and an overflowing gratitude for those who understood and even shared my artistic vision.

I can say with conviction that my experiences on November 22, 2025 helped me cultivate gratitude for my daughter, the strangers I met, my ability to create art, and the knowledge that purpose and meaning can be found even in an uncertain and unnerving world. I find comfort in those thoughts and hope that during this season of Thanksgiving they bring comfort to you, too.

October 28, 2025

Taking one photo per day, of a detail or a moment in my everyday life and surroundings, has become one of my rituals. It creates a brief mental or emotional pause for me and grounds me. My life’s ordinary trimmings seem special in the collected photos. They are starting to tell a story, not just about what I gather around me and value, but also about me.

The photo attached to this journal entry was taken in my studio. I was interrupted while reading the book,This is Home: the Art of Simple Living, by Natalie Walton, and had to put my book down. When I returned I noticed how appealing it was, the unintentional still life created by my humble materials and took a photo to capture the vignette.

What I appreciate about this photo is its calm. There is no drama as one moment pauses and another is promised. The book is open and waits for someone to settle in and continue reading. That someone is me.

September 10, 2025

Recently, I started taking one photograph each day, of something in my home environment, to chronicle otherwise forgotten moments. I print a copy of the photo and paste it into a journal with the date the photo was taken and (if necessary) a title. It is remarkable how much beauty exists in ordinary things; and how much creative inspiration, for writing and painting, this beauty provides. The first photograph I took was of our small dog, Bear. I used that photo to complete the painting in this post.

After I’d started this project, I read the following in the Camont Journals by Kate Hills: “Finding one’s voice as a writer, an artist, a photographer, or any other human is less an exercise in filling notebooks and journals, but more about living each day fully and as it presents itself—fractured, in pieces, broken by shards of light that are the glory moments remembered forever”.

This quote from Kate describes the essence of my effort: keeping moments of ordinary glory, from my ordinary life, remembered; perhaps not forever, but at least for a time. Hence the following poem:

Capture it early,
when the sun climbs in the East,
one photo every day
saving one moment,
otherwise unnoticed,
but now the most important thing,
an unforgotten intention
to preserve time.

August 13, 2025

Riding thermals,
they climb on sunburned air,
gain altitude, circling,
on motionless wings,
weightless,
carried high
amidst palm fronds drooping
in heat so thick
I can see it
rising below the gulls
lifting their light bodies up to the blue sky,
even as I feel it stealing my breath and
pressing me down to the ground.

July 1, 2025

Yellow is a primary color

worn by
sunflowers,
a halo of petals
turning to the sky,

worn by
roses,
one thorny Julia Child
with show-stopping buttery beauty,

worn by
lemons,
as scent and flavor
in rind and pulp,

worn by
summer,
alive with light and heat
and creation’s survival.

Yellow,
one brilliant color,
purple’s complement and an
agreeable companion to red and blue.

May 27, 2025

Weathered,
edges softened,
floors worn smooth inside,
soft, sugar-white sand outside,
all perfectly imperfect.
Baskets
and bowls
hold seaglass
shells and stones,
bounty from barefoot beach walks.
Waves
wash ashore,
gulls caw, float
pale-grey and white in silhouette,
against the cerulean sky.
Breezes,
fill white sails,
float the spicy-sweet scent
of magenta beach roses
into cool shadowed rooms.
Grasses,
sea oats and spartina
bleach in the sun,
flowers bloom
in bright summer colors.
Slowly,
time passes,
the dog asleep on the porch,
with me beside her,
one hand stroking her soft coat.
Together,
we share this moment
quietly, in a shack on the beach,
where horizon meets sea and sea meets shore,
and living ebbs and flows with the tides.