New Blog Site

No photo today.

I've started a new blog, set it up on September 22nd.  I had a crazy idea earlier that previous day while sipping tea and looking out over the bay, and mulled it over in my head for awhile, trying to figure out how silly it might actually be to do this.  I often do this with new ideas, work really hard at talking myself out of them and believe that if they were so great, someone else would've done it.   I'm probably not alone in this self-defeating syndrome.

I remembered a time in the early 1980s, when I had a tiny cabin studio on the edge of Lake Geneva in Federal Way, Washington (the cabin is now gone and the property is a park), and I started painting 3D-looking faces on little round stones, and placed them here and there in the old forest for kids to find as they walked down to play in the lake.   It was great fun, though I seldom saw who took the stones, just that they were gone the next day or two.

While basking in this cool old memory, I sighed at the seeming insanity going on in the world right now, wondering how we could all be so divided, polarized, angry.  I couldn't help but think how just the tiniest of quiet acts of kindness by enough folks could be contagious.  I thought of how an awful day I'd experienced could be so changed by someone who smiled at me or helped me pick up paperwork that slid out of my hands and hit the floor in cascades.   Or a stranger handing me a dollar at the coffee counter when my change came up short.

These two thoughts naturally wove themselves together and gave birth to the idea that I could begin putting "treasures" out there again, and maybe create a blog on which these numbered treasures could be reported on by those who found them.  There'd be a catch, though.  When someone found one of these treasures, they'd either keep them, or re-place them, but before doing so, perhaps could honor the gift by then doing a small act of kindness that day.  If they wanted to, they could comment on the blog and tell their story, including the number stamped on the piece and where they found it.   They would find the blog address on the back of the treasure.

Okay, so it's a weird idea, but I've already got the blogsite up and hope before long to create the first edition of these "treasures" and sneak across the countryside, placing them here and there like a human, middle-aged Easter Bunny.

If you'd like a sneak preview, go to Artists For Kindness

Wish me luck!