What's in a Name

Lately I have been finding myself with short snippets of time to work on my art, instead of hour long blocks. I have been using these snippets to work on several different projects. I'm finding it fun to jump around and work on the piece that speaks to me in the moment, but it doesn't really give me much to share in terms of progress images.

So instead I will share a little of my process for naming this piece.

watercolor 3" x 2"

Stacy L. Rowan

I have been trying to come up with titles for my watercolor thumbnails because the title "Watercolor Thumbnail 8" is neither informative nor inspiring. However, I was struggling a bit to name this piece and didn't know why. After trying a bunch of different titles in my mind and not liking any of them, I decided that, instead of trying to find a good title, I would try to find out why all of the current titles didn't work. Once I looked at the problem from this angle, I realized that my struggle with a title originated from my feeling that the pear and blueberries shouldn't really be together. This summer I started shopping at a local farmers' market and, as a result, have been learning about harvest times for fruits and vegetables. So I now know that blueberries ripen in summer and pears are a fall fruit. Because of that, in my mind, these fruits don't really go together.

Once I figured out what had me stuck, a title came to mind quite easily... "Untimely Companions." They are untimely companions because if I buy fruit according to the local growing season I wouldn't be able to buy them together. The title gives a nod to a topic (buying local produce) that is becoming more important to me. And I like the touch of humor in it too. Their companionship is also untimely because they are going to be made into fruit salad and devoured! YUM!