You didn't think I'd forgotten, did you?

Week two of Four Weeks of 40 is here and it's all about art!

This week I've compiled a list of 40 creative individuals who, for some reason or another, intrigue, inspire, or simply delight.

I stuck mostly to visual art: painters (though many were fluently creative in multiple mediums), a few photographers, and, just to keep it interesting, I threw an architect/designer into the mix.

In some cases I linked to an official artist's page, others to something generic like a Wikipedia article. Sometimes I simply linked to a Google search for images, because the images are what speak most to me about that particular artist (note: with this last one, there may be images that aren't by the artist, but are somehow tagged so that they show up).

Voici, in no particular order, artists that intrigue, inspire or delight...

1. Henri Matisse

2. Frida Kahlo For those who know me well or follow me on Facebook, I'm sure this comes as no surprise!

3. Wassily Kandinsky

4. Maurice Denis

5. Kees van Dongen (image below via WikiPaintings)

6. Emily Carr

7. Paul Klee

8. Claude Monet

9. Odilon Redon

"My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined." - Odilon Redon

10. Pablo Picasso

11. Diego Rivera

12. Ansel Adams

13. Edward Weston

14. Marc Chagall

15. Edgar Degas

16. Mary Delany

From a description on the British Museum's website:

"At the age of 72 she [Mary Delany] began to imitate flowers in paper collage as an ‘employment and amusement... '... Her skill was such that the great eighteenth-century botanist Sir Joseph Banks declared that these collages were ‘the only imitations of nature that he had ever seen from which he could venture to describe botanically any plant without the least fear of committing an error'."

17. Vincent Van Gogh

18. Gerhard Richter

19. Frank Lloyd Wright

20. Henri Rousseau

21. Jean-Paul Riopelle

22. Gustav Klimt

23. Amedeo Modigliani

24. Mark Rothko

25. Henry Darger I learned about Henry Darger in a documentary I randomly picked up at the library; though I find some of his art disturbing, his story fascinates me. The link is to the documentary trailer.

26. Georgia O'Keeffe

27. Edward Hopper

28. René Magritte

29. Paul Cezanne

30. & 31. Frances and Margaret MacDonald (image below by Frances MacDonald McNair (watercolour) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

32. Rolf Armstrong

33. Man Ray

34. Lilias Torrance-Newton

35. Jean-Paul Lemieux

36. Maud Lewis

37. Lawren Harris

"We were told, quite seriously, that there never would be a Canadian art because we had no art tradition." - Lawren Harris, Canadian artist and member of the Group of Seven

38. Edwin Holgate

39. Tamara de Lempicka (image below via WikiPaintings)

Self-Portrait in the Green Bugatti - Tamara de Lempicka

40. Joan Miro

"The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness." - Joan Miro

Life is full.

My husband and I are shopping for a house of our own. I scour the listings with hope. I pinpoint my desires in a new home, respect my husband’s, practice patience and trust that something will come up that meets them all.

We’re planning a trip to Paris and London. It’s our first time overseas, my first time on a plane in 10 years. I sink into travel books, laugh at my less-than-stellar passport photos, look for a good, stylish pair of walking shoes.

My part-time office work is busy. I plan, I facilitate, I try to follow along.

I continue my movement toward meaningful work. I update this space, I connect through writing, reach out through social media. I take new courses and work on creating some of my own.

I write my morning pages most days of the week. I go to bed early, eat broccoli, oranges, and ponder other methods of self-care.

I paint, I read, I revel in the new light of spring. I savour documentaries, I escape in mindless TV.

I look forward to celebrating a milestone birthday.

I vacillate from craving structure and taking action, to welcoming the intuitive and letting things unfold.

On some days I feel buoyed. On others I feel burnt out.

Yes, it’s been a full few months. But when I consider the opposite - the days, years ago, when I had no hobbies, no interests or no real ambition - I sit in gratitude.

I contemplate the opportunities that lie in front of me, the curiosity that fuels forward movement, and the choices that are mine to make.

And then I rest. And I silently give thanks for the fullness that is.