Friday gimp blogging

Jay Sennett tagged me for a great art meme recently (and I'll get to that in full, eventually), but due to my mandatory post-hospital "spend down" to maintain disability aid eligibility I've attained two pieces of lovely art. At 38, I'm officially an adult now that I have large (framed) things hanging on my walls that did not come from a rock concert.

I found this first artist's work (above) through Grannie's now-deleted blog. The artist is Alaskan Elise Tomlinson and the piece is called "Lupine Slumber."

This second print (at left) is by Duluth artist Bridget Riversmith and is part of a series based on recurring dreams about a red rabbit. Mine is called "Red Rabbit and the Oddities."

Both hang in my bedroom, which is newly lavender. After all that time spent in hospital beds with such a limited, institutional view, I came home determined to add some color to my world. My hope is that any and all future artwork I hang will be by people I know personally or that I made myself.

For those who need visual descriptions:

The first print is an ultra colorful painting of a woman and her cat curled up and napping in a field of lupine flowers with a lake and mountains in the background. There's an open book near the sleepers and the lupine flowers are exaggeratedly large, resembling inverted purple clumps of grapes. The colors are bold shades of mostly green, blue, purple and yellow, and the style is not realistic. Maybe there's an art expert out there who can tell me if this is impressionistic or like some other particular style. The pic hangs above my bed, which has grass green sheets and a fuschia-print pillow.

The Oddities print is predominantly bold red and shades of pink, with green, teal blue, and bits of orange and yellow. There's a red rabbit in the center with a girl in a dress swinging over him on a trapeze. The oddities are bizarre creatures surrounding them: an orange-ish bird-like dude with a teal cone-shaped hat on the right and a green creature with a long nose that looks like the horn end of three trumpets melded together on the left. There's a pale green fish below and an unhappy bullfrog under the big bird. The top of the pic has some bubbliness that gives motion to the girl swinging on the trapeze. This one hangs above a dresser that has books, a clock, and a little resin Buddha sitting on it. The pic itself is surrounded by a sage green matte and a black wood frame that make the colors dramatic against my lavender wall.

Curious about the books on the dresser? The poetry of Sharon Olds, Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, two of Judith Butler's books I haven't even cracked (so don't spoil the fun for me), The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenberger, Hugh Gallagher's autobiography Black Bird Fly Away, and a novel that takes place in China (which I also have not read).