without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable

1. Counting paintings, photographs and other artwork, no matter who created it, how many pieces do you have hanging on your walls in your home?
   this room (my office): 8 photographs; bedroom: 8 photographs and 1 print; dining room: 1 photograph and 1 print; living room: 4 prints
2. In which room of your house do you have the most art?
   oops. Um, numerically: my bedroom, though by size and impression it would definitely be the living room
3. 
   Describe the one that you think is the coolest?   Untitled (Green, Blue, Green on Blue [1968]) by Mark Rothko, a print of which hangs in my dining room. I love this style of Rothko's work, and this blend of colors particularly appeals to me. It is soft and soothing, pensive and contemplative, or stormy and unsettled, depending on my mood. More than anything else that I've displayed at this time, I find myself gazing at it now and then, searching for something.
4. Describe the one that has the greatest sentimental value to you.
   The last summer that I was married, my spouse and I took a lot of trips and entertained several guests. I didn't realize it at the time, but we were both in a sort of strange mode, trying to knit ourselves and our relationship together with the help of other things that we both enjoyed and other people who cared about both of us. It may sound strange, but it was not a bad time, overall, in a lot of ways: we were good to each other and took great care of each other.
   One of those trips was a day out with a high school friend of his, along with her new husband. They came to visit us and we showed them around the area. We'd just bought a new camera, so I was taking pictures the whole day. Although it is a little bittersweet to look at them all now--such a dramatic wash in what I used to be--those photos are also a point of departure for me. I was learning to do some new things, photographically, and having a really amazing time taking pictures for the first time in a long time. This photo is one of several taken of a massive kinetic sculpture on campus. I could have stayed there shooting all day. A different shot is framed and hanging in my bedroom. A reminder of who I used to be...and who I was becoming, even then.
5. Take the quiz: What Artist Should Paint Your Portrait?
   

   Who Should Paint You: M.C. Escher

   Open and raw, you would let your true self show for your portrait. And even if your painting turned out a bit dark, it would be honest.

   
   
   Blogthings: Cheaper Than a Therapist
   
   hard to argue with that
6. If an artist actually asked you to pose (clothed) for a local artists’ group so that they could all paint your portrait, would you do it?
   only if it paid well. I'm a little twitchy and easily bored.

[I found this thanks to The Cat, surprisingly enough, who got it here; title quotation by George Bernard Shaw]