different from expected?

 Back in January, at the first church service of the New Year (I was still at my mom's, it was the fairly-new minister there doing it), he had a basket of little stars with things written on them. The idea was, if you wanted to, you randomly chose one, and that was a word to "meditate" on for the year (They were all, I am sure, positive words).

I got Art

 And I felt a little excited about that - the previous year I had painted that bluebonnet and liked it enough to get it framed (and it's still up on my wall) and I thought about how as a kid I had kind of thought about art as a career (before maturity smacked me in the face and made me realize it would be unlikely I could support myself that way, and then later, realizing I wasn't very *good*, at least not in terms of innate talent)

And I thought, well, you're getting close to retirement, maybe you consider that in retirement you could take up painting or drawing or something and maybe actually pursue that old childhood thought, though this time, you'll have a pension, so you won't have to worry about making a salary. I even considered buying a copy of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" or similar.

But like a lot of things, life got in the way and I never did anything this year about it. Oh, I still knit, but I don't think of that as "art," per se, because I don't *design* and the things I make are (mostly) useful items. And I still play the piano, but not that well, and that's different (music) to what I think of as art.

But in the past few weeks, I did do some sort-of-art-related things: I'm considering becoming a "supporter" of the local Native American Art museum (I really SHOULD do that, I have the money, it's something whose presence I value, and I tend to be of the opinion that one should financially support the things you want to see in the world)

And I found a couple more people to follow on Patreon. There are a few folks I've followed for years - the South Korean artist Pikaole, who I originally followed on Twitter and now follow on Bluesky, and a couple times a year (well, not for the short time when "getting mail into the US" had been so monkeyed with by the primates-in-charge that she couldn't sent them to us) I get stickers from her as a thank you (and they're NICE stickers, too). And I support the person who draws Little Nuns, mainly to be able to access content online. 

But recently, I picked up two more: Sam Owen and Fossil Forager (Nicole). Owen draws funny comics; he's done parody-tributes to Heathcliff and Garfield and his current project (of several, he's also doing one on Weird Medieval Guys with Blemmies and cat-faced snails) is called Garffeld.

I love Garffeld. I hope he wants to continue it enough to put together a short book or zine so I can get a printed copy. He is working from the early strips (well, the ones that lend themselves to the reset) and setting them in a Middle-English era monastery. 

Jon Arbuckle is a monk; Lyman is a brother monk (maybe a biological brother too, like in the original strip?) and of course there is Garffeld and "Odin"

And Owen tries to "Middle English-ize" the dialog, and uses thorns and that conjoined a and e and it's very funny to me, the kind of thing that just tickles me in a particular way.

And at a certain (not very high!) level of support, he will occasionally send stickers, and the first one came today

Based on the first ever Garfield, but of course, reset:

 "Our only thought is to glorify God"

"Feed me"

The other person is Fossil Forager. She is a nature artist (I think she's based in the Pacific Northwest, or maybe northern California) but she does lots of things. I have a couple of her art prints (Native Bees, and Moths of North America) and I just kept them in their wrappers and then could hang them on my office door with blue-tac:

 This is from last week, I recently also added one of her "Support Invertebrate Biodiversity" stickers that I had. (I have obscured my name on the door; I shared this on Bluesky and that's VERY open and sometimes you don't want to make it too easy for people to know your name). 

Anyway, I found out she has a monthly support tier where you can get a sticker and a postcard. I signed up for a year (more expensive as a chunk but a little discount over month by month, and I have the money now - I took the RMD from the inherited IRA from my dad*) and it will be a nice small surprise in the mail every month.

I think of how I mourned the end of the Doki Doki crates I used to get, and how I cast about a bit for a replacement. Yarn boxes are pricey and I have so much more now than I'll ever use, and you often get colors you might not want, and a lot of the other "grab bag" things will have duds (food is out given my allergies, books are out because I might get duplicates of ones I have). But this might work as a replacement. And who knows? maybe I'll find one or two more artists who occasionally send out small things, especially maybe "nature" artists. Because with a postcard and a sticker - those are small, they won't take up a lot of space, in some cases I might choose to send them to other people, but it's still the "small nice surprise and mail that's not a bill or an ad or a charity beg" that I feel like I need. 

And who knows? I have a $15 voucher for Michael's, maybe next time I get down there I buy a small sketchbook and some good drawing pencils and try drawing again - either botanical specimens (which is kinda sorta work related) or just some of the little tchotckes I have around here to have something to  draw (lots of real artists remind people online: there's no shame in using a reference, and I know I'm not good enough to work without one, and of course biological art from a specimen has a long history of being done)