03-07-15. Helping Maxwell with a craft project on Valentine's Day.

03-06-15. Fancy couple seated on a tacky rug near a pond in a city park.

03-05-15. Shoes dangling from a wire by their shoelaces in a flooded neighborhood.

03-04-15. Airplane on a screen in an evening news studio.

03-03-15. A player wearing a Jiminy Cricket shirt at an '80s video arcade.

03-02-15. Presidential pets at an epic skateboard park.

03-01-15. Passenger looking at her photo booth strip in the first class cabin.

02-28-15. A Queen Victoria agave growing near Cuatro Ciénegas, an oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert.

02-27-15. Clutching a receipt near the English Channel during a storm.

02-26-15. A glass of milk in a mall food court.

02-25-15. Grandpa Kreamalmeyer & his roadside produce stand near Kalamazoo.

02-24-15. A Northern Arizona Lumberjack on a high dive.

02-23-15. Grandma Gatewood on a forest footpath. In 1955, she was the 1st woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail (GA to ME).

02-22-15. A bus stop near an Italian monastery.

02-21-15. The old woman who lived in a shoe at Everest Base Camp with her adult children.

02-20-15. Girl with a balloon animal at a busy lunch counter.

02-19-15. Squirrel up on a high wire above a garage.

02-18-15. Mac and cheese erupting from a volcano in Candy Land.

02-17-15. Baby wearing a bib on the Sicilian coast.

02-16-15. An electrical outlet on a shady lane.

02-15-15. Benjamin is two months old today.

02-14-15. A sock monkey at a shooting range.

02-13-15. Little boy holding a teddy bear in front of a Maine crab shack.

02-12-15. Little girl wearing a princess crown in a luxury car showroom.

02-11-15. A geek scanning a QR code at an Aldi bargain grocery store.

02-10-15. Man pushing a wheelbarrow where the sidewalk ends.

02-09-15. In underwear on top of the world.

02-08-15. Muffin tin in the window of a patisserie in Paris in the springtime.

02-07-15. It was warm enough for Maxwell to visit the playground today.

02-06-15. Reading about stalagmites in my childhood home.

02-05-15. A miner getting goosebumps in a coal mine.

02-04-15. Scientists checking a computer in a Yangtze River floodplain.

02-03-15. Making shaving cream pies backstage at an elementary school play.

02-02-15. The One Percent is eating a steak on his private beach.

02-01-15. A view of the Tower of Babel from a rooftop garden.

01-31-15. Skee ball in a lost city.

01-30-15. A crossroads near a Portland Loo.

01-29-15. View of a beach from under the boardwalk.

01-28-15. A swordfish swimming under a large rock.

01-27-15. Carrot top.

01-26-15. Landing pads.

01-25-15. Making fancy pants in Santa's workshop.

01-24-15. Rattlesnake on Navy Jack in a tourist's guidebook as she passes the US Turkish Embassy.

01-23-15. Man at Land's End, England showing tattoo in memory of his brother killed in Afghanistan combat.

Zuni Meets Chelsea (69)

"Zuni Meets Chelsea (69)", oil on canvas, 24x24". For sale on Etsy.

A young woman looks frighteningly happy about the stone armadillo being presented to her by a Zuni artisan. The woman wears an expensive silver and turquoise Zuni squash blossom necklace that can be purchased for £1,100 at a shop called Wilde Ones in Chelsea, London. The Zuni artisan also looks happy to meet a collector of his artwork. He makes Zuni fetish figures, tiny stone creatures with magical properties, according to legend. The armadillo is a modern addition to the more traditional figure shapes, as armadillos are not naturally found as far to the west as Zuni lands in western New Mexico.

This painting connects two randomly selected topics: Chelsea Pink (a shade of mauve that is color #69 in Naomi Kuno's Colorscape book) and anteaters, sloths and armadillos (from my DK Family Encyclopedia). It was difficult to find an armadillo in Chelsea. From what I was able to gather in my research, it's an obscenely wealthy area filled mostly with bland, expensive international designer shops. The Wilde Ones shop seems to be a rare holdout from an earlier era when things were grittier and funkier in Chelsea. It offers "New Age" and ethnic jewelry and gifts. I browsed through their offerings online until I discovered the Zuni fetishes. I created this happy but slightly terrifying and unequal meeting of worlds that is unlikely to take place in real life.

01-22-15. Silver maple tree branches in the view from one of our bedroom windows.

01-21-15. Geirangerfjord wallpaper on a musician's smartphone in the orchestra pit.

01-20-15. A cottage on a clear-cut mountainside.

01-19-15. Parasitic plants alongside an imaginary winding road.

01-18-15. Imagining swans flying through the Catskills in fall.