"What are you going to miss most about Chicago?"

"We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the 

only solution is love and that love comes with community." 

- Dorothy Day

This.

Swiss chard

To give you a snapshot of Amy Cohen: receiving 2 avocados as a thank-you, she took it as a sign that she should make avocado ice cream for our entire grad school class and bring it in the next day.  Amy is a generous lady, who with her enviable energy and upbeat attitude is an advertisement for veganism if I ever knew one.  She blogs @ http://amysveganday.blogspot.com.

Once she talked to me about a dream of starting a vegan restaurant that would employ people with developmental disabilities.  If there's someone who possesses the deep passion and incredible organizational skills to make that happen, it's Amy.  Let me know if and when that happens, Amy!  I will love to visit!

I've wanted to paint swiss chard for a while, and the vitality and health it represents through its bright colors made me think it would make a not-inappropriate wedding gift.  Here's to health and life in your marriage, Amy!

The Possible

The Possible's slow fuse is lit

By the Imagination

-E. Dickinson

The intent for the image was the transfer of a flame between cupped hands.  

It's somewhat abstract.  

Though, there is something freeing about representing the Imagination...

The Fine Mist

“I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on" 

―Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

Is it nighttime yet, Reshma?

There is something magical to me about dusk in a city under a misty rain.  I love the way the lights glow, and perhaps the anticipation of people closing up their shops with dreams of someplace warmer and cozier.

My friend Jane and I started the evening by the harbor at Lake Michigan, but lasted only about 5 minutes due to the heavier mist.  We made our way inward, and instead I completed a sketch (and she a watercolor) across the street from the Art Institute from the vantage of a cozy Starbucks.  

Jane often completes paintings along her travels and was an inspiration to me to start an art blog.  She has quite a gift with watercolors and a hopping Etsy business, too (http://waterpaintings.blogspot.com).  

I have also been thinking about my roommate Reshma this week, as she holds the traditional Ramadan fast--praying and abstaining from all food and liquid from sun-up to sun-down.  As Jane and I made our way back through the misty night, we wondered if nighttime is determined as absolute based on the sunset times, or whether on such a dim evening it might come earlier.

Jane will be moving just outside the city, and I home to Virginia, this summer.  But I have enjoyed sharing some painting art ventures with her, and tonight I felt like a regular city-dweller in an enchanting city.

And speaking of enchanting.  

Post by Anne Krane.