This story caught my eye while scrolling through the New York Times. I keep an eye out for media moments that feel cathartic or (unintentionally?) silly, and this image was both for me. A smashed crown is a cathartic image in a moment when people in power are abusing their power. And the crown looks pretty silly (but also sumptuously beautiful for sketching). (Catherine Porter wrote the story and Thomas Clot took the picture.)

pearl crescent butterflies, bees and flies pollinating white heath aster on a September afternoon Poem: I think it’s okay to call it...

The summer in September is the last cold sip of your party drink, the last taste on your lips as the sun dips under the twinkle lights,...

Butterflies have captured my heart and imagination. They seem like living hope to me, reminders of beauty’s transcendent, eternal nature...

farmer’s market flower stand overflow, garden gifts — jewels. art leads to art in a twilit home. Zinnia, dahlia and lisianthus blossoms...

Somewhere in time, people started insisting on mattering... Black lives matter. Yes, that was the time in recent history that "matter"...

Of all the journaling techniques I have found helpful in recent years, keeping a "Favorites" section has been one of the most helpful - though a full list of good journaling techniques is a good idea for a future post. The idea is simple: keep a generously-sized section in your journal for lists of "favorites." Whenever you come up with a new topic, add it. Whenever you come up with a new favorite, add it. Once in a while, when you are feeling like life isn't worth the effort

It find it satisfying to keep track of favorite things. These books have helped shape my thinking, expanded my aesthetic imagination, entertained me, influenced my craft, or comforted me somehow through the discovery of a kindred spirit. I am a very slow reader, and it's hard to shift my attention from various screens to the printed page, and to be honest, I like writing more than I do reading — so the fact that these have stayed with me is a testament to their quality. For a

(a poem) God gave humans a brain each: an awkward noodly mass you could hold in your hands — a gray-purple slime of sorts It has folds: surface area for connections upon connections upon connections Conclusions are pressed into slimy surfaces, intuited deductions like this old one: Birthday cake candles are waxy and bright pink. Balloons and birthday cards and paper cups: also bright. The world must be bright for me. Now I have accumulated many conclusions about the light in