Here's my December page, in progress.  After another very intense Summer of deadlines and cross-country drives, I'm back working and can give more time to the beading.  Now that the month, and the 2007 BJP is coming to a close, my only regret is never getting enough of these done so I can have a page on the 2007 BJP website...  I'll be continuing with 2007 as I work on 2008, and posting them here, I suppose, since they won't be appropriate for 2008.

Still Working...

I'm just about in the middle of my, um, December page.  And while I am not setting any speed records (except for maybe slow speeds), I'm happy to still be working on this.  I will finish up with 2007, but it may take me well into 2008 or '09 before I'm done.

The new BJP starts up so soon!  Yes, I'm going to continue, and begin the new year's projects.  I have a better chance of keeping up with it, since all my family stuff is OVER, the house sold, my step-brother currently residing on our back porch while he figures out what to do next. So no more drama from that quarter, and no more long drives to disaster.  To be sure, there will be something that will jump in the way, but I'm hoping that 2008 - 2009 will be much better and much calmer, and I'll have more time to devote to artwork and especially the Bead Journal Project.

Right now it's in the mid 80s here in Portland, with a predicted high of 97F!  I may move down in the basement for the afternoon to hide from the heat.

... 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.