Image-a-day on pinterest: wallpapers for my Virtual Victorian

4 foot cat

Now that I have committed again to making an image-a-day, I have to drag myself back to work on large nanoscapes and small friends, including the four-foot cat painted on primed aluminum (left) which is nearly finished.

Indigo Wallpaper small panel so that you
can begin to see some of the
detail.

My daily delight and obsession is making a tiny painting which becomes the "image-a-day." Now that these are stacking up (there are 84 pins on the Image-a-Day board on Pinterest), I have begun to imagine good uses for them. One project is the Virtual Victorian House which has plenty of space for these images as they are imagined into tile and rug designs. Every Victorian needs wallpaper, and now I have wallpaper designs, too.

The Indigo Wallpaper is a tip of my hat to fabrics imported to England from China. The French Lines design is a Fleur-de-lis gone wild.

French Lines Wallpaper

A Virtual Victorian has many advantages: its windows need not be replaced; its roof does not leak; and its plumbing is always modern. Sadly, it has no ghosts other than the ones that come from my imagination.

Cool Tools: The Art of Manipulating Fabric (Inspiration for painters and others)

In case you were running out of inspirational material:  Cool Tools: The Art of Manipulating Fabric:

'via Blog this'

Public Policy 2: what links the folks who do the work?

(nanoscape) Public Policy 2

What is public policy?  It has been defined as an attempt by government to institute law, regulations, decisions or actions pertinent to a problem at hand.

Policy work is done outside of government, too. Employees of non-profits and NGOs work just as hard as government employees on policy  issues. Huge swaths of corporations now have in-house corporate social responsibility positions.

What are its parts? Every public policy question presents (1) a collection of critical and subsidiary issues as interpreted by political and non-political leaders coupled with (2) multiple approaches to devising solutions from experts in a variety of technical disciplines. Will many of the offices and organizations have conflicting agendas and wildly conflicting goals? Of course.

Each policy question is viewed through its history as seen through many lenses, the emotion of today's news, and a necessarily hazy vision of the future. Every approach to solving a 21st century policy question suffers from an insufficient budget-from-hell.

Who does the work? The people who work on public policy issues are connected to one another across local, state, and national boundaries because of their strong (perhaps obsessive) commitment to solving a problem. They bring energy and enthusiasm, technical skills and experience, good faith, visions with a variety of clarity, and their absolute determination to make a difference.

Their collective commitment Although the participants and factions often disagree enthusiastically, what links the strengths of each participant is the collective commitment to identify and solve the problem.

The silver bar at the center of Public Policy 2 represents the commitment that connects all of the actors in this important part of public life..

Public Policy 2 is an original 5x3 inch watercolor and it is not for sale.