My house was on fire, by Lara Daciuk O’Connor

Sleeplessness

"Sleeplessness is the inevitable symptom of an era in which we are encouraged to be both unceasing consumers and unceasing creators."

--Jonathan Crary

(Sent from my phone)

Tiny Desk Gardens

Lately I've been creating tiny desk gardens. It's been a blast! Ever since I was a kid, I've loved plants. I used to splint the bent stalks of a beloved spider plant with tissue and tape, carefully crafting a support for the leaves to mend. It took about a week (!! Can you believe that short?) and then I could (carefully) cut off the little tissue casts.

These little desk gardens are made specifically for no-light, no-care environments. While everyone may love plants, not everyone who could benefit from greenery can have them. Some may be fighting allergies or an illness, or have pets who eat plants. Or maybe they have a desk where they spend 8+ hours a day staring at a screen, unable to get outside. A plant would die without the right light and while it's possible to get artificial lighting for the plant, that in itself creates a harsh environment for human eyes already straining at a computer.

So I created these tiny desk gardens to fill this niche and fill empty and barren spots with color and signs of life but no maintenance. Enjoy!

One batch is done!

These are the smallest ones.

They fit in the palm.

I use air-dry terra-cotta clay for the tiny pots.

At some point, you have to actually take the plunge.

"At some point you have to actually take the plunge into the pool. Trying to analyze how water moves and how you can swim effectively by staring at the ripples in the water as you sit on the sidelines will have its limits. The time is rapidly approaching to simply jump in. Once in the water, you will know instinctively where you want to swim to next. You may think you do while you are on the bench, but hypothetical thinking is not reality. Sometimes you simply can't know for sure until you are in the situation. We learn about life by experiencing life, not by analyzing life on the periphery." ~Cary Tennis

Great art has dreadful manners.

"Great art has dreadful manners. The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality..."-- Simon Schama