Urge To Paint

In the grip of the foul mood, I asked myself, "Self," I said, "what would you really LIKE to do, as differentiated from all the things you need to do?"

Myself said, "Heck, what's to like?" Then, "Wait a minute. I wanna paint something. All them clippings I have of things I want to paint someday when I get some new paint, and a place to keep all my art stuff together. Yeah, that's it: I wanna paint something."

So I sighed and said, "OK, just gimme a few days--I mean, give me a day or two, and I'll set up the place for you. I'll even go buy you some new paint. You've already got more brushes than the Fuller salesman."

"And medium!" said myself. "Don't forget medium. Can't go stinkin' up the place with turpentine, though I love the stuff myself."

So I moved the dining table and chairs and the rug into the living room, and removed 3 dozen objects (really) from the two country French bookcases. (I observed that the bookcases need to be painted, in hopes that the paint will hold together all the pieces that are falling off.) Went to the basement and brought up my easel and a floor lamp and cleaned them. Raised the chandelier with a 50-pound picture hanger. Need something flat and solid to set the easel on so won't ruin the carpet. Mentally located all my brushes before starting to look for them.

Next time Jed is here, remind me to ask him to help me move the big white bookcase from the back basement room, clean it up and put it next to the workbench. That's where I'll put all the china, glass, metal and ceramic objects that have become obstacles.

I want the painting room to look nice, but as bare as possible. It does need some kind of table, though, for drawing and such.

That picture of Walt Whitman in the hat, painted in gray tones and then glazed with some very thin sienna.

*

Added 3:15 p.m. - Books read in May, 1998:

Birthday Letters, by Ted Hughes (poems/attempted catharsis regarding his wife Sylvia Plath's suicide. Terrible to read.)
The Dancing Floor, by Barbara Michaels (Good)
The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, by Jane Smiley. (Good pre-civil war novel--Kansas Troubles, Missouri Compromise - Best in May)
Linda Goodman's Relationship Signs
The Ragman's Son: An Autobiography, by Kirk Douglas (Just like Koik)
The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath (Better than Ted's. But then she didn't have to carry the horror and guilt of her spouse's suicide.)
The Wizard in the Tree, by Lloyd Alexander (A Dr. Who-type wizard. Good)
The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha, by Lloyd Alexander (Good)
Collected Short Stories of Stephen Vincent Benet (All the good old stories of which one had forgotten the author)
The High King, by Lloyd Alexander (Last of the Taran Wanderer books; not the best)