Courtyard flora at Bonneville Spa and Resort

It feels like about several years ago that I promised more photos from my trip to the Pacific NorthWest.  Thanks to those of you who sent private missives asking if I’m okay since I’ve been rather quiet for me without any announcement of being away.

I have been away, but not away.  I’m still getting a handle on the new part-time job (well, okay, after two months I guess it isn’t new anymore).  Things are finally falling into some sort of order (she says hopefully), but I’ll have to admit that psychically my head seems to stay there instead of with my art.  Perhaps after the newness wears off that will change.

Here are more photos:

Meanwhile, I’m still getting reverberations from ArtOMatic:  more sales!  And, sigh, a mask that was sold prior to ArtOMatic but was hung at ArtOMatic, broke on its way to Cambridge, MD (Joie de Vivre) even though it was double boxed.  I had it insured but have heard it’s a nightmare to get them to pay so there’s yet another thing to put on my list of todos.  The woman who bought it still wants a mask.  This was raku – with an odd earthy glaze that I, alas, don’t remember.  Perhaps one I mixed up to try.  I don’t think I have it anymore.  Or maybe it was just underfired.  So I guess I’ll make several more to raku and experiment with glazes and see if she likes any of the new ones.  So I have masks and a torso to make, and a Wylde Wymyn piece who lost her hand somewhere in the kiln and I can’t find it.  She’s a commission too.  I have a busy day!  Then I thought I’d visit Heron’s Way (where I took new work yesterday.  The gallery manager hung it for me since I was running between a meeting about an hour from home for the job and the dentist to go get two crowns ground off for replacement – woohoo) and join the First Friday gallery crawl starting there.  Haven’t been to one of them yet and I’m ready for some art folks and networking to balance all the part-time job networking.  But I have to say that the part-time job has thrown me back into doing non-profit work that I LOVE (and I’m good at it and as I get my feet on the ground I’m remembering that and having FUN).

I also still have a bunch of pictures from ArtOMatic, but their website has been down so I can’t get artist information until that goes back up (I haven’t had a minute to check on it this week), but I do want to put more up.

And I’ve made a note to myself to stop setting up meetings and hour or more from home (that’s my territory) at 9 a.m. so that I’m leaving at 7:30 a.m. (to allow for traffic).  I am going to be more balanced about that because when I don’t post I lose some of my centeredness for the day.  I drift through the day feeling like I left something somewhere and can’t quite remember what it is (my mind.  Now where did I put that part that gathers everything together and ties it in a neat little package so that my day falls out fluidly in front of me?)

Anyone looking for a good book?  Try Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali – WOW!  If you don’t want to read the book in her words, just click over and read Wikipedia’s version which is very comprehensive and which, of course, you can click out of endlessly.  Which I just did.  Fascinating reading.  Scary.  Makes me think I should know more about certain subjects than I do, but one has just so much time to become an expert on the so many things that make up our world.

thought for the day:  Developmental psychologists see cooperation as an important indicator of adulthood.  Individuals grow from childhood dependence through the independence of adolescence to a recognition of our interrelatedness.  On the international level, many countries have been arrested in adolescence.  Yet as current ecological problems witness, we breathe the same air, drink the same water, share the same sunlight and rain…What keeps us from seeing this harmony, from recognizing our interdependence?  Fear.  Whenever we feel our security is threatened, we become defensive, hostile, and aggressive.  This is true for individuals and true for nations.  To cooperate, we must overcome our rears by building trust, developing a deeper understanding of ourselves and one another.  Diane Dreher, the Tao of Inner Peace (1990)