let's just face it - there will come a time when i'll keep up with these pages, but that time is not right now.  and rather than spill drivel or waste your time with mindless and endless whining,  know that i am thinking about you, and thinking about this space, fondly.  and in respect for both, will come visit here only when i have something good to say, or at least not the same yuk.  different yuk, maybe.
some good news is that after a thorough - and i mean total - shake up and clean up of my studio, i found not only some missing collages, but…wait for it… my mojo.  yes.  it was there under that plastic tub o'stuff behind the rusty circle thing.  there.  and i am in the process of creating, Alberto Burri style.  which made me weep full dripping tears and snot at the Guggenheim when i saw his work in person.  didn't care.  isn't that what art should do?  move you.  i hope to be able to create a piece someday that will do that to someone.  to make them weep with the intensity of what it stirs within them.  and i will consider my journey unfinished till that happens.  can you imagine?? what it must feel like to have been in the creation phase of something so amazing that it would make a stranger weep in public…make them stand stock still in front of your work and let the tears come…feel their heart stop and their breath shorten…what does it feel like, as an artist, to create such a thing?  does the artist know that this piece is special?  or is it like the encaustic painting i just bought - the artist had thrown it out, and her husband told her to hang it in her studio "just to see what would happen" during open studio night.  i have that painting above my fireplace mantel and see it every day.  and every day, it stops me the same.  but i want to move people with my work.  i think it's the authenticity of the soul pouring into the materials…that's what captivates.  and maybe throwing the piece out was a response to wanting the same thing, and feeling that she was falling short.  i'll have to ask her.  maybe she just didn't like it.  but the pieces i'm working on now- i am in love with…i love the process, the tactile fulfillment of working with soft wool and slippery silk and scratchy burlap & canvas…i love coming into my "new" studio and warming up the tunes and the coffee and some great Nag Champa smoke and stitching till my hands are too sore to move, or Henry absolutely has to go out.  i feel authentic in this series.  and i can't begin to tell you how important that is to me.  i worried that i'd lost my artistic voice…that making production art had stolen away my ability to feel, to express my soul's conversation.  but after a forced time away from art materials, and after spending time helping other artists get their "go" on, i am finally ready to step back into the studio again.  i went to see a screening of Handmade Nation last week with my brother, and it strummed some chords within me…it was the true Namaste…i realized these were my people, my tribe, and that i don't belong in a cubicle and that's okay.  that i belong to this family of Makers, and that's okay.  and it was a homecoming for my heart in a lot of similar to reconnecting with my cousins after all those years.  a tumbler turned in a lock and thunk something fell into place.  i was home.  in both instances.  i could look at these people and say "i am one of them."  and i have to say, weirdly, that the face in my mirror has been easier to look at, now that i know who she is…that trying to fit into the wrong shaped box has been painful all these years, and i'm not alone…there is a tribe of people that i am related to - by blood or by soul…a place i belong where i'm not the strange one…where i'm not doing anything so out-of-the-ordinary.  it feels good to be average.  in this case.  so now i head back to the work table for an hour or so, then to cuddle my patient puppy and listen to the wind and rain howl outside.