Appreciating Family and Creating Beauty

Two things that are really hard to do around now.

It's the holidays, and we all complain (at least once, at least a little) about how our friends, and our family, and we ourselves, can be so terribly imperfect and unendingly disappointing. Also around now, even the least artistic of us has been more craft-y than usual - wrapping and writing and baking and decorating and fussing.

James Kim died earlier this month trying to save himself, his wife, and two small daughters after getting stranded in a snowstorm. It's a tremendously sad story. But thanks to Patti I've discovered that a collection of artists is helping with an online benefit auction. It's a combination of both the family and the artistic impulses - except done to the highest power, not in our own little daily imperfect ways. It's stunning.

And so are the pieces themselves. I'm partial to these and this and especially (as little as I normally like gold) this. And this. And this. And ... well, they're lovely, is what I'm saying.

I don't know, honestly: maybe it'll be crazy expensive and you can't afford any of it. But that'll be a good thing, won't it, because all the money is going to the Kim family fund. But, maybe you could win something beautiful next week for an awful good cause.

You could even save it for a present next year for one of those people who get on your nerves (but who you actually love pretty tremendously).