Thank you Amy! I love this post, your thoughts about randomness, and the grids! I sometimes wonder if anything is random. I use grids in much of the web design work I do. It's a simple and efficient way to present visual information for my clients. I find it aesthetically pleasing. I love order...and I appreciate randomness as well, though I look for patterns in everything. I have no idea if that made any sense...I've only had one sip of coffee! AND thank you for the month, and for using one of the affirmations I offered. I can't wait to show it to my therapist...who was the person who shared it with me in the first place. She'll love it. Have a wonderful day!
Of course that makes sense! As a web designer for many years, I totally understand seeing everything in a grid. (I think my approach to modular design has strong ties to that.) In my art, I love setting up grids, but I also love breaking them. I love that interplay. Thanks for looking at the comic affirmations, too, and for sharing the affirmation last week!
Heh...my younger daughter shares a flat with a roommate in Australia. She keeps 90% of her belongings in a small bedroom, maybe 10' x 12'. She just reorganized one of her cupboards and explained that a particular shelf was taken up with miscellaneous items without much order. Except that it was all neat and tidy. So I called it organized miscellany, and then I ended up here. Funny juxtaposition. ;) I love the color squares on that floor, and I also love your grids. As you note, it's not easy to create something that is both random and pleasing, but grids tend to feel soothing to me. I wonder if the square pattern of the floor does that for me, so that I can "handle" the randomness of the colors?
I'm listening to a book (fiction) right now that is relevant and fun, and I'm recognizing - thanks to your prompt to highlight a line of poetry - that listening means I'm less likely to jot down a line or passage that speaks to me. I still have about 40% left, and I think I'll keep a journal nearby just in case.
That’s a great phrase, Elizabeth. Love that. Happy to be a dot in a string, too. That’s how we find meaning! Totally agree about grids being soothing. That’s an interesting perspective on why the floor works. It may also be that at that scale, it’s big enough that we just don’t fully take in the randomness unless we really stop and look.
What is this book you are enjoying? I empathize with the issue of audio…. Sometimes I check out the e-book as well simply so I can track down some of the lines!
The book is Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett and narrated by Meryl Streep. And I did not follow through on the notion to jot down memorable phrases. I'll have to do it retroactively! I've been immersed in spring cleaning (if ONLY I actually did it every spring) and wasn't able to multitask any further. Nevertheless, I finished the book AND the projects I wanted to complete today - so that feels good.
Interesting, the idea of scale making randomness less noticeable. The world we live in, maybe? :)
I have had that on my list -- and listening, too, because of Meryl Streep doing the audio. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. Spring cleaning AND gardening, right? That's an orderly, grid-based thing, too ;)
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers . . . .”
This has been in my mind lately, and popped up immediately when I re-read your “too-muchness” affirmation. You meant it, I think, in a slightly different way — though not unrelated. The darkness and the heaviness of things. At any rate, I loved your phrasing. Very ee- cummings-ish. Hmmmmm. Wordsworth and whimsy. I’ll have to think harder on that.
I’m captivated by your grids, especially ones with surprise irregularities. I wonder about the choices for each square, like you wondered about the selections in those hospital floor tiles. But how vast the choices with content and composition and line and depth of field (vs “just” color and position and rhythm). Your voice is so whimsical and so powerfully deliberate at the same time. Discursive and focused. Sly and forthcoming. I like how all of your various streams this week sing to each other. And to us.
Thank you. Really, just thank you. I feel especially bad for the goose chase of the posts.... we now connect dots across time and space rather than just on the same page. Hard. Very few will follow those threads, so I really DO thank you. So..... I once had a cat. Your post brings the cat into the near picture.... funny how our words do that.... a cat named after a poet and, more rightly, his sister. Thank you for both the Wordsworth and the ee cummings. Wordsworth and whimsy.... maybe not always a stretch.... those dancing daffodils are a favorite.
As for the grids.... I love breaking form in the same way I love the structure of the form to being with. Those were years ago, but I love the ultimate juxtaposition - and randomness. Things in my journal are often about filling space.
I'm a newcomer here and am fascinated by your "what" and "how" and "why", can't wait to read more, then comment more. Just fantastic.
Thank you, Mary, and welcome! It feels like this week, this post, might be a pretty odd intro, so I really appreciate the comment!
Thank you Amy! I love this post, your thoughts about randomness, and the grids! I sometimes wonder if anything is random. I use grids in much of the web design work I do. It's a simple and efficient way to present visual information for my clients. I find it aesthetically pleasing. I love order...and I appreciate randomness as well, though I look for patterns in everything. I have no idea if that made any sense...I've only had one sip of coffee! AND thank you for the month, and for using one of the affirmations I offered. I can't wait to show it to my therapist...who was the person who shared it with me in the first place. She'll love it. Have a wonderful day!
Of course that makes sense! As a web designer for many years, I totally understand seeing everything in a grid. (I think my approach to modular design has strong ties to that.) In my art, I love setting up grids, but I also love breaking them. I love that interplay. Thanks for looking at the comic affirmations, too, and for sharing the affirmation last week!
My current fave poet is Jarod K Anderson ♥️
One of his is :
Hey.
Your matter recalls cosmic explosions
and you tasted oblivion before you learned your own name .
Fear nothing.
🌟🌟🌟
Thank you, Melissa! I appreciate you sharing these wonderful lines.
I love these grid ideas! I'm going to experiment with them this week! Another great issue!
Thanks so much for looking and commenting, Jason. Grids are so central to the kind of work we do, right?
Organized miscellany!
Heh...my younger daughter shares a flat with a roommate in Australia. She keeps 90% of her belongings in a small bedroom, maybe 10' x 12'. She just reorganized one of her cupboards and explained that a particular shelf was taken up with miscellaneous items without much order. Except that it was all neat and tidy. So I called it organized miscellany, and then I ended up here. Funny juxtaposition. ;) I love the color squares on that floor, and I also love your grids. As you note, it's not easy to create something that is both random and pleasing, but grids tend to feel soothing to me. I wonder if the square pattern of the floor does that for me, so that I can "handle" the randomness of the colors?
I'm listening to a book (fiction) right now that is relevant and fun, and I'm recognizing - thanks to your prompt to highlight a line of poetry - that listening means I'm less likely to jot down a line or passage that speaks to me. I still have about 40% left, and I think I'll keep a journal nearby just in case.
Thanks for your generosity, Amy.
That’s a great phrase, Elizabeth. Love that. Happy to be a dot in a string, too. That’s how we find meaning! Totally agree about grids being soothing. That’s an interesting perspective on why the floor works. It may also be that at that scale, it’s big enough that we just don’t fully take in the randomness unless we really stop and look.
What is this book you are enjoying? I empathize with the issue of audio…. Sometimes I check out the e-book as well simply so I can track down some of the lines!
Thank you for reading — Have a good Monday.
The book is Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett and narrated by Meryl Streep. And I did not follow through on the notion to jot down memorable phrases. I'll have to do it retroactively! I've been immersed in spring cleaning (if ONLY I actually did it every spring) and wasn't able to multitask any further. Nevertheless, I finished the book AND the projects I wanted to complete today - so that feels good.
Interesting, the idea of scale making randomness less noticeable. The world we live in, maybe? :)
I have had that on my list -- and listening, too, because of Meryl Streep doing the audio. I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. Spring cleaning AND gardening, right? That's an orderly, grid-based thing, too ;)
“The world is too much with us; late and soon,/
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers . . . .”
This has been in my mind lately, and popped up immediately when I re-read your “too-muchness” affirmation. You meant it, I think, in a slightly different way — though not unrelated. The darkness and the heaviness of things. At any rate, I loved your phrasing. Very ee- cummings-ish. Hmmmmm. Wordsworth and whimsy. I’ll have to think harder on that.
I’m captivated by your grids, especially ones with surprise irregularities. I wonder about the choices for each square, like you wondered about the selections in those hospital floor tiles. But how vast the choices with content and composition and line and depth of field (vs “just” color and position and rhythm). Your voice is so whimsical and so powerfully deliberate at the same time. Discursive and focused. Sly and forthcoming. I like how all of your various streams this week sing to each other. And to us.
Thank you. Really, just thank you. I feel especially bad for the goose chase of the posts.... we now connect dots across time and space rather than just on the same page. Hard. Very few will follow those threads, so I really DO thank you. So..... I once had a cat. Your post brings the cat into the near picture.... funny how our words do that.... a cat named after a poet and, more rightly, his sister. Thank you for both the Wordsworth and the ee cummings. Wordsworth and whimsy.... maybe not always a stretch.... those dancing daffodils are a favorite.
As for the grids.... I love breaking form in the same way I love the structure of the form to being with. Those were years ago, but I love the ultimate juxtaposition - and randomness. Things in my journal are often about filling space.