Blue Heron, Homosossa Springs, Fla. by Tammy Vitale

When in chaos, do something.  I’ve run out of matching pendants and beads, wrapped all the single left over beads and still don’t want to go into the studio just yet.

So in my upstairs studio, which is actually my office, I’ve been making greeting cards – it started with some great photos I took in Florida and then morphed on into pictures of my 2D work like Girlfriends here – which was featured last year on Alyson Stanfield’s blog (thanks! Alyson).  I went out and bought cards and photo stock and came home only to find I had cards and photostock and frames (bought some of them too) – so I spent a merry afternoon yesterday printing and pasting (cards) and matting and framing (prints – both just matted and matted and framed).  I am deliriously happy with some of these photos I’ve taken – enough to make me want to wander out (it is getting to be spring, after all – at least every other day – although now I’m hearing a call for snow showers) and take local photos – because, my friends, these are strictly "widgets" as one person called art for money on a recent ArtBizBlog (I responded huffily to that – as if working a job somewhere else is better than working for yourself and making stuff that you know will sell – local photos and blue heron and egrets always sell in Southern Maryland).  But I won’t get into that argument right now – no point.  Some feel a righteous need to have art and money be separate.  Not me.  I like a roof over my head and food on my table (ok – a bit less food would be okay).

Speaking of Alyson, I am going to be interviewing her here on May 23 for her virtual tour celebrating her new book: I’d Rather Be in the Studio.  Mark your calendars and be sure to check back.

Meanwhile, while I’m off playing, I want to introduce you to an artist we discovered while roaming around in Florida:  Paul Baliker.  His gallery was closed, but much of his work appears monumental and so was all out in the yard, where it appears he also works.  His medium is trunks and roots of cedars.  Some are later cast in bronze.  Here are the pictures I took for your viewing pleasure.  In researching him, I learned his mom is also an artist (and of course Google won’t pull her up now – so I can’t give you her name) and she may be responsible for the lovely bronze women figures in the garden – they weren’t labeled.   

thought for the day:  The essence of life is that it’s challenging.Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter.  sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens.  sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy.  From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience.  There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.  Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart:  Heart Advice for Difficult Times