The mother of an astute philosophical thinker once described life as "a box of chocolates". She's right, or course, as most mothers are. When you work on paper, you never know what you're going to get.

Grayson Perry says that your mistakes are your style. Given the amount of mistakes I'm guilty of, I hope it's true.

https://duanetoops.substack.com/p/make-mistakes

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...won't let you down...

By Special request, art inspired by the song “Freedom ‘90” by George Michael

https://duanetoops.substack.com/p/all-this-time

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There is no such thing as scarcity when it comes to art. When it comes to ideas. When it comes to creativity. “Something more will arise for later,” Dillard reminds us, “something better.” Something beyond anything you could have ever imagined or dreamed…

duanetoops.substack.com/p/at-the-edge

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One of my favorite weekly rituals is making a piece of art for one of Carolyn Jones' poems. I did a lot of experimenting with this one. Tried a lot of things I don’t do normally. I think I may have been too ambitious. It didn't come out nearly as well as I wanted it to. But I enjoyed trying some things out and it was fun to do.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-141244253

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Roy Peter Clark says that it's best "to think of marginalia as a genre." Maybe it's best to think of it as medium, too. Everything I make takes place in the margins. At the edge of something beyond me, at the periphery of something else. Something that pushes me towards...something. That's where it all happens for me...

https://duanetoops.substack.com/p/at-the-edge

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It doesn't take much, it's true. Sometimes a little is all you need. A little time. A little graciousness. Ten breaths, one after another. A little art. A little music. A few small letters stacked into ten good words: You're ok. You're ok. I promise you, you will be.

https://duanetoops.substack.com/p/ten-pages

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"Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world." - Susan Sontag

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...show me your knuckles...

(Art inspired by the song "Knuckles" by The Snuts)

https://youtu.be/p3wnvQyNfPE?si=9QgCPfnN-enN3rI7

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The universal exists in the particular. The thing that you thought was so specific to you is the thread that connects you to everything. Lean into your weird. Own what makes you different, what makes you ‘you’. That's the texture of our shared humanity...

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