I was going to start working on my newsletter this morning. It’s supposed to go out on Tuesday. But, since I don’t really have much news to report since the last newsletter, I’ve decided to skip the issue.

On top of that, I still have to hold back on announcing getting into a publication I’d been trying to get into for eons. They are way behind on their publishing and don’t want the artists making any announcements until the issue comes out. It was supposed to come out this past winter and it probably won’t hit newsstands until summer. Oh well.

However, I had a great meeting with the folks at Compound Yucca Valley yesterday about my upcoming show, On The Mend. We mostly talked about the programming, and that was exciting. I also got my exact dates for the show: November 16th through January 12th.

The opening will include a special guest performance, but times on that are still pending. We’re still working on dates for some of the other events, like a couple of workshops I’ll be doing, plus a walk-through where I talk about my work and process. That one includes a Q&A. I think that one will be at the beginning of December. In any case, as these things get solidified, I’ll be sure to announce them, most definitely. It’s all beginning to be set in stone.

Until then, I’m still working away toward the show and making good headway. I’m way more than half-finished with the embroidery project now. I’ve been working on those while listening to audiobooks. I also still need to stitch a tryptic, which I have found is a lot more time-consuming than expected.

I thought I was done with all the paintings, but I’m not exactly happy with some of them right now, so I decided to work on a couple more, or maybe a few—all smaller ones.

Then, there’s a matter of the sculpture and another secret project I won’t speak of.

We decided to nix the specimens and I feel a huge sense of relief! This gives me some time to focus on the work and promotional ideas, of which we have a few great ones. I’ll be making some of my limited edition promo packages for VIPs to try to get some extra attention. Fingers crossed. And I’m hoping to get some people from LA out here. …We’ll see.

Oh yeah…I spoke before about this being my last year applying to artist residencies. I did not get into Yaddo again, but I did get on the waiting list for Skowhegan after getting an interview with them. So, I sure got close. In fact, there’s even a slight possibility they could ask me as late as the end of this month to come out for the session, but I very much doubt it. If they had a set-in-stone available spot, they would have called me a few days ago. I’m going to chalk it up to a “nay” at this point. But it got me thinking about applying there one last time since I got so close. It can’t hurt.

If I’m going to apply there, might as well try one last time for Macdowell. Then, for sure, that will be it for good. I guess things are never really set in stone. Ha ha ha. I’m nuts!