The Matchmaker. 1625
Calling Chiaroscuro simply a ‘technique’ is saying very little. Telling the story through 3 facial expressions is beyond artisanship.

Calling Chiaroscuro simply a ‘technique’ is saying very little. Telling the story through 3 facial expressions is beyond artisanship.

His signature style comes across as ‘raw’, ‘strong’ and ‘earthy’.



My latest obsession is ‘interiors’ and contemporary museum/gallery/studio scenes in art.
Gretchen Scherer and Thomas Brossard. Two amazing artists. Their works are magnificent.
That is the notebook’s spotlight today.
“Don’t be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.” – Arthur Miller
Ikigai – 生き甲斐 . Japanese word/concept defined by the idea that true value lies in what gives your life pleasure. Pursuing one’s passion in life, living for what gives you joy and meaning offers a sense of true accomplishment, worth, and value.
“I am pregnant with the book. I feel its weight, its pressure, its stirrings.”
– Anais Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 1: 1931–1934
“It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus— that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying with our entire curved and silenced selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that are being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?”
– Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Two characters that are food for thought…The Couture Bots.
Members of an elite guard – black tie by evening…this is their day wear on duty.
They have the ‘stance’. Quite Blasé.


The need to pee…Natural. Necessary. Discretion Required.
The urinal. Portable. ‘Made for women’. A necessary and convenient contraption.

This one has an inscription:
ha! je te vois, petit coquin
( ha! I see you, little rogue!)
I have a question. Who is addressing whom? The lady? Is addressing a voyeur? Or is there a reference to the view from the urinal???? Just wondering…
Image from Lauren Alwan on X


These two images above are bourdaloues… female urinals.
Portable. convenient for the times, perhaps. Artisan crafted.
This bourdaloue below is ‘beautiful’…seriously. It looks just like a gravy boat. But it isn’t.

The bourdaloue above? It changed me…I used to LOVE drinking my coffee out of large, artistic ceramic mugs…NO MORE.
The image below? Guess? Nope. Not a bourdaloue. It is a gravy boat.

What came first, the gravy boat or the gravy boat shaped bourdaloue???
I know most people dont use gravy boats today. But still. Gravy Boats are/were a thing. As were bourdaloues.
Aesthetics are aesthetics. Someone, somewhere, must have known better and could have made the difference – Perhaps, one could have used a little imagination and made the urinals or the gravy boats in a completely different style…
They look easily ‘interchangeable’…ew.