Ask any artist about “emptiness” and they’ll tell you about the constant recurring nightmarish emptiness they must face down almost every day as a part of their vocation: the blank space that they must fill. Whether he’s a painter facing a blank canvas or she’s a poet facing a blank computer screen, the blank space awaiting transformation at the hand of the artist can be the loneliest and cruelest place on earth... Read more here It contains a nice exercise to find out where your inspiration comes from. What/Who is your muse, did you ever consciously invoke it?

Spring feeling

Don't you just love those first warm days of the year? I know I do, I love the twitter of birds in spring(though it is surprisingly more difficult tracking down where it's coming from)When they seem to have saved all their songs through the winter for the courting of females.

Golden Dragonfly, Doesn't it look like it's wearing a shining armour?

A Dragonfly wearing nature's most beautiful silky colors

If the dragonfly is clad in silk then this little beatle must be wearing the costume of the imperial guards :3

Another beautiful dragonfly

Some wonderful Ranunculus repens

Dreamy

Light filtered by leaves, turning the scenery into a fairytale <3

Under momma's wings

Winter cupcakes

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes with almond-caramel frosting
Recipe by Me! Perhaps not artsy, but nevertheless a lot of creative work involved

Appendix to Oiran-Dying flowers

A little appendix to the uploaded story:

While browsing the internet for (I believe it started there) calligraphy techniques I came across a woodblock print of an Oiran. I googled it to find out what it was, being aware it meant something like "Prostitute"..
And as a matter of fact it is..sort of. Oiran are courtesans:

originally meant "to be or reside at court", and later came to mean "to behave as a courtier" and then "to pay amorous attention to somebody".

Which generally means that they were higher educated, or rather that they possesed more skills to entertain than the average prostitute. There were several grades of Oiran, of which the highest was Taýu. Taÿu were skilled dancers and entertainers who also provided "Other services" for money when they were officially summoned to do so.

Of course since it's got to do with Japan I got sucked into it way too much and got inspired by a movie on youtube about the OIRAN-DOCHU. Which is a slow procession or parade of Taÿu with their students and servants, as they did when they were summoned.
Because of this I wrote the little story below :)

Yoshiwara- dying flowers

In their white and bright kimono's they sit down, the purple eri bare and dark against their bare flesh. The girls dancing in their valid cage, twirling gracefully against a screen of softly illuminated cherry blossoms.

Oiran, Trapped inbetween the gaze of the hungry eyes of men and the rosewood of the rich screen that hides their illustrous shadow.
Trapped in their elaborate kimono's with the obi on the front. Caged for their beauty, and the services that money buys and feeds. Not only desire, but also hungering families, miles and miles away from tokyo and Yoshiwara.

The women around her dance , a slow move of the hand, outstretched and pale as if holding a fan. A beckoning motion to the men outside the cage, outside the window..
Men whose gaze need no translation.

"Ansai, I've already said you" Her nee-san starts at her as she sees her concerned face "freeze your body and mind, it doesn't matter as long as you keep your head cool"
The oiran talking to her holds her head high and gazes once again straight ahead. Her lips can no longer form a smile, the soul was ripped from her eyes and Ansai follows her gaze outside. To the workers..
"Up your chest" the woman sighs
"Up your chin" her hand strokes a fan "Foolishly look outside"
Her lips smile as she gazes "Look like a fool and gaze there"
"Gaze...gaze" the woman sighs once more "gaze..."

She swallows, slowly nodding but not understanding what she truly means. Four years ago now.. She listens "To not be chosen is to fall back among the faces in the crowd"
A place where the eye does not wish to see, to live in poverty "Set yourself out from amongst that crowd.." From under her dark eyelashes the woman looks at her "Can you do that to live?"
Slowly something of a grim smile spreads over her face while she looks at Ansai before she once again directs her gaze outside, letting her eyes play over the wicked and poor, the wealthy and shameless.
Their customers and kin in an uncaring world of fading beauty and ideals. Ansai's eyes grow dull and big, shocked and suprised as they meet and interlock with those uncaring eyes. Filled with lust and loathing as the undress and possess in a manner uncanny to her yet to be molded mind.
They enstrangle their desire with their own self-hate as they search what they cannot truly possess when they fill their head with other thoughts, and desires they can never aquire.

4 years ago now.."Ansai-san, why did you so suddenly want to to Oiran-Dochu?" The Oiran Dochu is the parade of high Oiran, the taÿu. High class courtesanes that are cultured and pleasant company. Delicate and elegant, fragile but strong.
The girl in the bed remembers a glorious parade of Taÿu. Oiran on high geta, hovering 15 cm oer the ground. High, triumphant, a vague grin spreads over her face.
"Because" she softly whispered "Oiran-dochu sounds like a "sakebi" of women"
The girl leaning over her next to her dabbed her face with a wet cloth.
"A scream of women who were sold here,
A scream at the people who dropped us here" She looked up
"At the people who look down on us as callgirls"
In her head the parade takes the form of lanterns, the crown, the narrow streets, the smell of poverty and pain and disease. Her eyes narrowed
"A scream at the men who pay us, to buy us in spite of looking down on upon us"

The parade behind her eyes grew brighter. Kanzashi shimmering in the light of illuminated candles and shoji-screens, glistening in a haircut in the shape of a waxing moon. Quivering, her lips moved
"I want to march along a street to show of my naked glance"
she spoke determined
"Watch us"
"Look at us"
"We are still alive- though we were sold, caged, and forced"
"With beauty"
"with elegance"
Her eyes were shining with a vivid passion
"Look evrybody"
"I stay alive as a human however hell here is made up of women's lifeblood-
We are still alive and are able to blossom out into red, beautiful flowers"

Hands shaking into an unfelt breeze, breathing softly, she tells of a world made of their tears. Of punishment and social disease.
"Flowers" she whispered "Drawing ruin on oneself by the stress"
"Dying by the red disease of tuberculosis"
She sighed, her eyes directed on a past or future far away. A place nobody can call her from.

Let them eat cake

let them eat cake nail-art
Designed and created by me

Petticoats

“

I consider woman as a beautiful romantic animal, that may be adorned with furs and feathers, pearls and diamonds, ores and silks. The lynx shall cast its skin at her feet to make her a tippet; the peacock, parrot, and swan, shall pay contributions to her muff; the sea shall be searched for shells, and the rocks for gems; and every part of nature furnish out its share towards the embellishment of a creature that is the most consummate work of it. All this I shall indulge them in; but as for the petticoat I have been speaking of, I neither can, nor will allow it.

„

Source: To complete the stiffening of their under petticoats from FreeFictionBooks.org