Jessica Brannen.
Halifax, Nova Scotia.
https://twitter.com/lavieim

Lately: A new year and sort of peeking at it, trying to get acquainted with it slowly. Hello January. You have the same name as last year, but you're different.

Playing in the snow. Reading. Writing. The time of year I start buying fresh flowers. Wanting to paint, sew, bake. More time for writing projects and long walks.

Listening to: Southern Shores, The Radio Dept., New Order, LCD Soundsystem, The Drums, Max Richter, Four Tet, John Maus

Reading: Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, Virginia Woolf, Tove Jansson, Alain de Botton- Essays in Love, Mary Oliver

Watching: Pippi Longstocking

Scotch tape, play doh, book pages and freshly cut grass on top ranking smells list.

Persnickety yet easy-going?
And no more naturally austere than you are naturally vicious. (Charlotte Brontë)

Middle child.

You can make me a Mexican feast and bring me tulips or cosmos.

Bookish, journal-writin' type.

Husband from Scandinavia and 2 kidlets.

Grew up in Chezzetcook on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia, playing on the beach and in the woods. Still spend a lot of time there. You can hear roosters.

Lived in Sweden for many years and speak Swedish. Love Sweden and Finland. Visit every year.

Hollyhocks and delphiniums.

Studied art, photo, film and textiles. Have a love of all things arts and crafty. Also gardening, sewing, and writing.

Remember rolling down the hill?

Remember picking Fool's Gold out of the road with butter knives?

Remember that time we sneaked into that white abandoned house and saw a wedding dress in the closet?

Let's go swimming in the ocean.

And go thriftin'.

I can peel carrots really fast.
I'm left handed.
I wish to find secret letters or notes hidden in old walls.
I love good old-fashioned letters.
I love quilts.
I love scraps.
I make a mean pancake.
Collective nouns are funny.

Over and out.

art frenzy!

This trip to the country had the perfect balance of nature time and art time. Both outside and inside, we played, painted and made art.

Which is so much fun with kids because they just go at it. No hesitations, no over-thinking, no over-planning, or worrying about final products. Just the joy of messing with colour, marks, textures, glue! The happiness of making a big mess. (The “blue gloves” hands- I didn’t exactly allow this- it happened while my back was turned…and was he ever pleased with himself.)

We went out collecting rocks and flowers and the like in the morning, so A. got an idea for a collage she wanted to make with what she found.

My sister Eva helped her put it together with the magic of the glue gun.

These awesome houses got drawn by A.

And I love this EA. abstract. (When asked, most drawings are “the moon” or “a boat”, or occasionally a soccer or basketball.)

Even Mama got to play around for awhile. Must have another Art Frenzy day soon.

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early

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White birch bark is stark in the sun. Woodpiles sit very still. Mailboxes stand, contentedly expectant.

Moss, birds, tides, daffodils, butterflies, moths, ants, worms, squirrels, mice. I’m back out here among my enchanted places, my secret places, my gentle places, my dreaming places.

To live like this! Painting, drawing, writing, having grand breakfasts at a real table brought outside. To be able to smell grass, to have nature at one’s fingertips!

Growing things open, shut, bloom, drink, root, protect, defend, strain, stretch, reach, wait, store, restore, repair, renew. Whisper or talk silently. They have a language.

(This spot is thick with strawberry blossoms. There will be so many wild strawberries here in early July- remember it.)

Walking down the hill early in the morning, stopping to stare at buds. Shades of everything sit together, meeting the day seamlessly joyfully. Something sudden and round near my chest circles laughter.

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icancauseaconstellation:

Erica Baum - Dog Ear series, 2009

(Source: mitjaissick, via iloverainandcoffee)

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I´ll say, too, it´s not an all or nothing sort of proposition. You´re not all depiction or all distortion. Just as you are not all hedgehog or all fox.

— David Biespiel

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humansofnewyork: “I want to be an artist.” “What kind of art do you want to make?” “I want to make different versions of myself.”

humansofnewyork:

“I want to be an artist.”

“What kind of art do you want to make?”

“I want to make different versions of myself.”

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