I'm retired. Officially retired with the cake and parting gifts and everything. I think it must be like going on holiday; it takes a week before you finally believe you're on holiday and then you have that final week to enjoy before returning to work. Retirement hasn't felt real yet. But I'm trying. It's been raining so much that there is little I can do outside, didn't even take the dogs for a walk yesterday. There's a part of me that rebels and doesn't want to start spring cleaning just because I've retired. Have read a couple of books, well almost finished with the second one, and have worked on the drawing.

The drawing. I'm going to call it The Night Cat. It's an outline of a cat leaping. It's 'framed' by a leopard pattern frame surrounded by surrealist trees in a night sky. The background of the cat is a patterned space partially filled by a knobbly somewhat surrealist tree. Naturally I don't know what it signifies, if anything. (There is a rather soggy looking kookaburra sitting on the hills hoist. Foraging for all birds will be difficult with this rain. I know flying foxes starve because the nectar is washed from flowers and assume the same holds true for nectar feeding birds. Insects would be taking refuge from the rain as would lizards. I am glad of the rain but admit to missing the sky and sun. This overcast drizzly weather has been continuing for weeks with little days of sun inbetween). Anyway, a day when one works at art is a good day. I've had a lot of good days. Again this drawing is in pencil and ink. I like the blackness of the ink contrasting with the malleability of pencil greys. Doesn't it just excite you to make something that was not there before? To create. It is our hand within God's I think. The Power That Is CREATES but we in our tiny little reality can mimic that greatness and pull something from nothing. It doesn't have to be world class, it only has to be ours. And original. Anyway, tomorrow, weather permitting we'll go to a garage sale at Helidon. They have pictures in frames for sale and I am always on the lookout for cheap frames with glass already in them. It makes framing work so easy since I don't have a clue how to frame things and have never bought materials. I have a huge frame, bought for $20 from St. Vinnies. I don't even have paper large enough to fit in it. Not sure what I'll do but other people work large so it must be possible.

Which brings me to an artist called Laurie Lipton. She works very large and in pencil and although her works are somewhat macabre, she is a tremendous draftsman. (Ah, the kookaburra got something from the grass and has flown off over the dam. Earlier a wallaby raced across the dam bank so fast I thought one of the dogs was in pursuit but they were hanging out on their beds. The rain has curtailed their activities too. Radar won't stand at the corner wallaby watching. Whippets don't like getting wet me thinks). I've gone to her website several times for inspiration - not the subject manner but the way that she portrays it. It's humbling. Not only is her work detailed and lifelike but she has this well of creativity. Her pictures mean something. You may not like the meaning portraying as it does death and a sort of hopelessness. It is not life enhancing, referring to a previous post, except with the beauty in which it is portrayed. There is one drawing called the kiss or the embrace or something like that. It is a close up of a man, alive and warm with that life being embraced by a thinly fleshed skull with a skeletal hand holding the man's cheek. It is awful and it is beautiful.

Just had a short email from a friend of ours. He and his wife have just split up. What a bastard. Why does it have to happen to the nicest people? I know, I know. There's a reason and it's all good in the end but it hasn't been so long that I don't remember how badly it hurts.