Strange photo, right? Last winter, in an attempt to save energy, I inadvertently turned off the heat. It’s spring now and the bathroom pipes are being repaired – from the outside…

But see how the house is “stripped”, and now you can see underneath. Inside. The truth of what’s going on.

Fixing houses. Making art. It’s not always “pretty along the way”. I was with a friend today and she asked, “What’s that dark spot on your hand?” Some dye that I hadn’t noticed, hadn’t washed off. Not tidy.

But I don’t care. I’m not thinking about the color on my hand. I’m wondering how that color is translating on the cloth to the colors dyed earlier, and the chemistry of the piece as it evolves. I’m just all the time IN the piece. It’s with me in one way or another.

Apropos to that, I love how Gaimon goes beyond the advice of “tell your own story to:

tell the stories you cannot help telling… It’s the point I think of in writing as walking naked down the street: it has nothing to do with style, or with genre, it has to do with honesty…

Bare boards, I’d say. And the honesty part: the hands on the cloth, the application of color, the touch ? We’re all so human, aren’t we? Seeking that note of self.

That note.

Sharing that with others.