Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Settling down






Please pardon the radio silence as I get unpacked in our new home (again). This time we're settling for awhile an it feels great. Most of our place is still in boxes, but the living room is shaping up nicely. The house we're renting feels like a little mountain lodge.


This is the view from the living room window:


And a little fellow my husband caught the other day:


The place is brimming with wildlife; there are hummingbirds, dragonflies, frogs, chipmunks, and deer all over the place (I'm told bears as well, though we haven't seen any yet). The woods are full of edible mushrooms, my husband had some for lunch today that looked like this:


It's been a really nice change from city life, and a big sigh of relief to unpack things that have been in storage for more than a year. I realized pretty quickly as we started sifting through boxes that the vast majority of my things fall into one of three categories: books (of course), art supplies, and angsty drawings from college like this one:


I'd love to purge and lighten our load but I find each of those things very hard to get rid of, for different reasons. The books because I want to remember them and reread them and use them for inspiring new stories. The art supplies because of all the projects I might need them for. And the drawings because the more time that passes since art school the more I forget where I started on the journey to becoming an author and illustrator. And it's good to remember that beginning and how much has changed since then.

4 comments:

Libby Koponen said...

Anna! Your house! It's so homey.

The "angsty drawing" made me laugh. (I hope that's not rude.) But it's so different from the warm colors and "calm reassurance" (was that how the NY TIMES put it?) your work has now!

Anna Alter said...

Ha, I know. The thing is, I didn't mean to look so serious. It's just the face you make when you sit still long enough to draw yourself! But yes, quite different from where I'm at now.

Meghan McCarthy said...

The drawing has good shading. Don't get rid of that stuff!

That looks like a great living environment! I love the woodsiness.

Meghan McCarthy said...
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