~ Painted memories ~

So as you can see, I'm still thinking about lakes.

One of my favourite reasons to shop on Etsy is that i know i'm supporting an individual artist/crafter rather than a faceless corporation. I found Ryan Fowler's work today and I am completely smitten. His colour palette feels so autumnal, and takes me back to our drive through a pocket of Vermont. And the polar bear just triggered a memory that I had to phone my mum to confirm: growing up we had a huge reproduction painting of a polar bear's head hanging above the fireplace in the living room. In my mind I saw a polar bear, but i still had to phone and ask, because my first thought was – really? A polar bear? But my mum remembered the same, so there you have it – my 70s childhood included a polar bear.

We also had a dog who looked remarkably like this dog below, called Sadie. I still dream about her, and she often speaks to me in my dreams, but i'll save that for another day…