Anne made a thing, and I’m super excited to share it with you.

They are silhouette paintings of trees that I saw at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It’s crazy. They are literally the first and second thing I painted and I’m selling them. YIPES! Even though I shared the paintings on Twitter, it’s kinda scary to make it into a thing that people can own and now that I’ve made it available, the scary feeling has been replaced with excitement. Yay!

Anne wrote about her creative journey a few months ago, and I love it. It’s inspiring as hell to me, and I love that she found the confidence to embrace the artist I’ve always known she is.

We are surrounded by so much beauty in life, and even as I visited the Hollywood Forever Cemetery late one afternoon, I could see it. The cemetery is surrounded by beautiful old, gnarled trees that look like enormous protectors, silhouetted by the setting sun. I had never painted before but I had a strong desire to paint these trees, and so I got some watercolor paints and made these two paintings.

I love that she painted these trees, and I love that people liked her art so much, they asked her to make them into cards or prints. I especially love that she found the courage to risk putting them out there in an Etsy store, because I know from personal experience how scary it can be to wonder if anyone actually likes the thing I made enough to spend money on it.

She sort of soft-launched her store yesterday. We were at the hockey game last night (it would have been nice if The Kings decided to also show up for the hockey game last night), and during the game, she was getting notifications on her phone that someone had bought a box of her cards. It made me so happy to see the joy she felt each time one of those notifications popped up, and I was so grateful that I got to be there each time it happened. I’m really proud of her, and still can’t believe that I’ve managed to trick her into staying with me for almost 21 years.