It's Fun! It's New! It's Friday F.A.Q!

But first . . . I have to put a little post script on Wednesday's offering and share the latest message Ms. Universe has sent my way, this time via a horoscope writer who I generally find to be the worst horoscope writer the universe has on staff at present.

However, I thought this one seemed just like she was posting a comment:


That's as nice as some of the comments I got from my blog friends! (Shame on all of you for encouraging an addict.)

My husband and I share the same horoscope, so some days we decide it's intended for him and some days it's for me -- I get dibs on this one (he might try to take it but I licked it already).

And now, on to something




I'm taking a break from Friday Favorites to bring you Friday F.A.Q.
(luckily I was able to maintain a similar alliterative standard)

When you show your art work (as many of you undoubtedly know), you get asked a lot of questions.

Some are ignorant:

(How much for the frame without the little stitched-thingy?)

And some seem too stupid to deserve an answer:

(What is this? Is this photography?)

Yes, someone actually turned and asked me that after they had studied my work for a few minutes. Now that's just scary.

But some make me say, "Good Question!"

(Do you consider yourself to be an artist?)

and then I go home and think about it and sometimes write about it here.




Perhaps the most frequently asked F.A.Q. I have received over the years is this:

Where do you get your ideas?

Well that is a good question.

And I'm actually going to let Barney Fife answer it -- I don't usually call on Barney when he raises his hand in my class because if you've watched much Andy Griffith you know he's not terribly bright, mainly just the class clown -- but Barney opened his mouth on my TV the other night and this perfect answer just popped right out:

I'm a trained noticer.









I've been known to ask people how they don't get ideas, because ideas seem to pester me constantly, usually when I'm trying to sleep or too busy doing something else to act on them.

For years I was pestered by word combinations and sounds. Now I get visual images as well, but it's definitely all the result of

a whole lot of this




and a whole lot of that




And I find that when you collect a lot of looking-and-listening-ingredients and you put them all on the back burner at a continuous slow boil (you have to stir and taste and keep adding things all the time, of course) you get ideas. But it's definitely a cultivated habit.


A half-baked idea is okay as long as it's in the oven.

And you have to be interested in cooking.

For instance, if you happen to have the right pot boiling, you're prepared to appreciate it when someone like Barney Fife says something brilliant.

I'll send you off with a stanza from a poem about seeds that I wrote a long time ago:

An idea is a seed
that you grow in your head,
You can change it to grow
something different instead.
You can let it grow wild
or keep it quite small,
If you want you can keep it
from growing at all . . .



And a quote from Woody Allen:

"Right now it's only a notion, but I think I can get the money to make it into a concept, and later turn it into an idea."

Or just give it a little water and see if anything sprouts.

Grow on.