when you mention death, I hear violins

Life class isn't going well; I'm just not in the zone with it this time. I console myself by picking up a pair of studio easels, gratis. They'd been removed from their usual corner and placed in the naughty corner opposite, one bore a roughly penned note warning, ''broken, do not use''. Well, I asked if I could have them, to save them from being thrown away. That was last week. This week, after spending a half hour simply dismantling and reassembling, I have one perfectly good easel, albeit mucky with old paint, and a second mucky easel with only one missing bolt and wingnut, and a small wooden clamping piece which any numpty can fashion from a common or garden offcut. Brand new they'll cost £85 a piece. I'm as chuffed as a chuffed thing can be.

Trawling (I'm lately regarding this as a more suitable adjective than surfing) the net for inspiration, I stumbled upon this project from last year. 500 artists submitted a postcard-sized work to be included in a book entitled, A Book About Death. Brazilian artist, Angela Ferrara, compiled this superb video-slideshow of the exhibits. It runs a little fast for me [old codger!] but you can pause if you're quick [I should've kept up playing vid games!], and the music, though not unpleasant, wasn't what I'd choose when looking at pictures about death, or artwork of any sort. It's a bit full-on. You can always mute, of course. It's worth going to Youtube and watching in HD rather than this little embedded view.