About...

Two years ago, I had the pleasure of attending a workshop with the poet, Gabrille Calvocorresi.  Each day, as we arrived, she would have us sit and note down "Five things I noticed today that nobody else noticed." It was an exercise in mindfulness, a way to flip the "on" switch on the brain as we started to write.

I began to do this exercise every day--either right before going to sleep, as a sum up of my day, or first thing in the morning as an opening meditation.

As a visual artist, I found that the practice had the added value of strengthening my visual memory. It also made me aware of what draws me to paint, what are the moments that transfix and hold me.

As a new mother to a young baby, sometimes this can be all I manage to achieve in a day--brief notations of visual highpoints. Sometimes, when the baby is hyperactively tearing every book out of the bookshelf and flushing all the paper down the toilet, even this can be hard to  achieve. So I decided to move this daily meditation to a blog. I have found with my previous daily project, Bibliodraw that the external commitment to a public forum makes it easier to keep a private commitment to myself.

So here it is--a hopefully daily listing of five things I noticed, alongside the photos I snap from the side of my eye, and sketches done on the spot, or from memory. 
Please feel free to chime in with your own notations and observations.