Reflections of an Artist

I Need to Get Out and Paint

      At the end of last year my friend Marian Fortunati and I got into a discussion about the state of the state of California. I mentioned that I had noticed a lot of out-of-state license plates and that it seemed Los Angeles was experiencing an influx of people moving from other states. Marian said that the state was loosing population, not gaining. I checked with a few statistics and sure enough Marian was right. In the beginning of last year the Golden State did loose population with more moving out than moving in but I kept seeing all those out-of-state plates. I figured I'd wait until after the holidays but even then I still saw so many. OK.... so I became completely obsessed with this and decided to print out a list of all the states and see how many of the fifty states I would see in a month. Was this a trend or was I crazy.

      The results are in and I have seen license plates of 42 out of 50 states around my home in Los Angeles during the month of January. I also saw Alberta, Canada. The eight states that I am missing are Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and West Virginia. It seems that people are coming to LA, with a lot of them moving into my neighborhood. I have gotten very good at recognizing various states. For instance, Wyoming has a bucking horse with rider on theirs, Maine has a pine cone and Florida has oranges. I know doing this was silly but I had a lot of fun too. The only thing, did I prove I am crazy (because I did this ADD thing) or did I prove I'm not because did see so many states. The good news is I am finally over a sinus infection and will be going out to paint plein air tomorrow.