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Searching out awe in Alaska
I was facilitating introductions around a seventeen-person room to kick off a two day planning meeting in Juneau, AK last week. Participants were asked to share the usual – name, role, etc – and also something that inspires them to do the work they do. In the role of facilitator, my job is to maintain…
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Shrunken shoes and change
It may come as a surprise to learn that Crocs can shrink in direct sun. It’s a sad, sad thing to find one’s pair of shoes have reduced by an entire size in an afternoon. It’s why I’ve scrupulously shoved my (many) pairs of my beloved Crocs under seats in the car or, as was…
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A business, man
Here’s a little Oz behind the Alli Harvey Art curtain: I have this strange conundrum, which social media tells me is shared by other artists, where I – Alli – both create a product and I am the product. I paint paintings that are their own thing out there in the world, but people typically…
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What Bob Ross never told me
He did it long before TikTokers: Bob Ross set himself up with an easel and broadcast his painting for people to behold in real time. As I kid I’d watch him on PBS. I wasn’t watching for his technique. Like many people I found his painting hypnotic and satisfying: as he applied his brushstrokes, I…
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The easy way out
Wes asked: “You have to pick a place to live. Would you choose Framingham or Vegas?” “Vegas,” I replied without thinking. He agreed, and paused. “Okay, Vegas or Boston?” I paused for just half a beat longer, but still returned with: “Vegas”. He agreed with that too. We were driving the spaghetti mess of Vegas’…
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How to decide and how to change
In early 2011, I sternly sat myself down to journal. I’m an intermittent diarist, but in this moment I had a particular task: design my upcoming move to and life in Reno, NV. I was upending everything I knew in Alaska to go see about a guy who lived there. I had enough bravery (recklessness?)…
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Six months in and so much more
I was scrolling through the photos on my art phone – did you know you can call/text me at (907) 390-9983?! Try it! – looking for reference photos for new paintings. Interspersed in all the pictures were so many memories from the past six months that already felt like they took place in a different…
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How to train yourself to see
When I was a kid, bored as hell trapped in my childhood bedroom by yet another round of illness/asthma, I often passed the time by drawing. I drew magazine clippings of celebrities. I drew the inside of my closet, or the tree outside. This was long before the hypnotic draw of smartphones, so my attention…
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Hello after months on the move
I had a nagging feeling through mid-August, September, and somehow I’m already nearly done with October: I said I’d write. I take my commitments seriously; sometimes too seriously. As the days wore into weeks and months and I still wasn’t updating this blog as consistently as I’d intended, I decided to let it go. Wes…
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A new no normal
Wes’s alarm went off at 4:45am. He peeled back the single bedsheet we’d pulled up at some point in the night, moved to the foot of the fold-out bed, walked three feet across the floor, and tapped a small battery operated puck light in the bathroom. This was enough to illuminate the trailer in the…
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Asthma defined me, and it’s not all bad
I don’t know how many people know this about me. It feels like I share pretty openly and freely, but it’s still so outside of how I come across now (yet so deeply shaped my identity and how I approach my life) that it feels worth repeating. I had chronic asthma as a kid. Due…
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When the high is 117F
Cars line the parking lot at 7:30am when we show up to run the red dusty trails. By 8:30am, there are only two cars left. There’s a neat hidden flat tab of fabric woven on the inside upper edge of my sun shirt sleeve. I loop my middle finger through it to keep the shirt…