... And Another Page Somehow Appears

Here's my latest page, which puts me at about, um, November. November was maybe my least favorite month of last year, in which we had sold our house and had literally 30 days to find a new place, buy it, and move in. Yikes. It was an extremely stressful time, but we got through it, as we knew we would. At the time, though, it was very scary and angry-making. We'll be unpacking, getting rid of things, and fitting ourselves into our much smaller house for many months to come, but we like this part of town a lot better, and I think we'll be okay here.

Back From Bead Expo

I woke up this morning and found this peahen patrolling our neighborhood. In the picture, she is right under my studio window, beside my house! Portland has quite a few wild peacocks, as it turns out, another reason I love it here. My husband and I, thinking she might belong to someone nearby, went out to try to catch her, but she was way smarter that us, so is still at large in North Portland. I guess they are really just giant chickens, but so beautiful!

Bead Expo, put on by Interweave Press, was here from last Thursday until Sunday, and I was in day-long classes for the entire event. I'm so tired now, but also very, very inspired. All the classes turned out to be excellently taught and very useful. I did my best to take classes that would make me stretch out of my comfort zone and try new and different things, and that might even be a little intimidating or scary. This was an excellent decision! I discovered all sorts of things that I might not have learned if I had just "played it safe," and I will actually use a lot of what I learned instead of thinking, "Oh, that was fun!" but never really doing much with the information. I'm thinking that it would do me a lot of good to approach other aspects of life in this same way, too: stretch out and learn something. I've always felt that, like a shark has to keep moving through the water or die, we have to keep learning and growing or we'll die, too.

Done!

I just finished this page, and here it is. I still have to even out the edges, clip a few threads, etc., but I decided to post here and just take the night off. I'll start the next one over the weekend.

It is always so interesting how these thing turn out.

Another Page Begun

Here's the start of the next page. I'm making fair progress on it and hope to have it finished soon, and the next one begun, maybe even before the month is over. I think this is for October...? Anyway, I'm feeling powerfully motivated to work fast, since Portland Bead Expo is only two weeks away!

This page has a lot to do with growing, emotions and events, but feel free, as always, to interpret it any way that works for you. I get a lot of stuff worked out through these pages, but sometimes I don't realize what they mean for me until much later. I've always believed that art is a relationship not only with the art piece and the artist, but the art piece and the viewer, as well. And ultimately, the viewer/art relationship may be the most important.

Another Page Finished

Here's the page, finished at last. Some urgent paying work swept into the house last week, but once that was done, I was able to get back to where I was and finish up. I'll be starting another tonight and/or tomorrow. It was interesting working mainly in greens this time. I wonder what the next piece will be? I'm still a Champion of Behinders, but one of these days, I'll find myself all caught up.

Still Working...

Here is more progress on my page, plus a shot of the very small (3/4 of an inch at the widest part) piece of agate that inspired me to start it. I'm finding the green colors to be very calming and soothing to work with, yet the movement in the design feels very joyful and energetic and makes me want to go out and play -- so I do! I'm hoping to be finished sometime over the weekend and will begin a new page a few days later.

Sometime between now and next Tuesday I'll be taking time out to do a little painting around the house to surprise my husband when he gets back from a conference. It will be nice to have the house to myself (and cats!) for a few days, though I will certainly miss him. I really do like having quiet time all to myself sometimes.

New Page Started + Corrected Scan

So, I have started a new page, and here is the beginning. I'm basing the design on a beautiful piece of agate that I rediscovered at the bottom of one of the myriad boxes I am unpacking these days.

Also, I'm posting the better scan of my previous page -- sure is good to have the scanner up and running again!