It wasn’t weird. You’d think it would be, but it wasn’t. Like I said before, I didn’t burn any bridges there and I feel that Tressa and Brooks, and even George remain my friends. I’m still listed on their website though. That change might take a while. I think they hire their webmaster but three times a year.

Just a couple of weeks out and what’s really interesting is the amount of ideas that have been coming to me since I gave my notice. I’m working on six pieces – five on birch panels (24 x 24 inches) and one of the same size on canvas. I am kinda crazy happy about all of them.

Arctic Memory will have to wait a bit, but it’s still set up in the studio, little broken threads laying all over the floor just in front of it. I realized that I did not paint the landscape under the letters after all. As I applied water to the paper, it was easier to pull them off and there was nothing but white, primed canvas under there. I then realized, I couldn’t have painted oil under the letters because I put those things on with a clear, acrylic polymer. Duh. Now I’m debating if I should just paint right over them (the Hei and the Kuf) and work on pulling off the other three since those are practically black. Whatever I do, it’s a back-burner project for now.

(Arctic Memory  (How it might look after the change, 2013). Oil, paper patterns, pencil, thread, embroidery on canvas, 40 x 60 inches.)

I am waiting for results from Yaddo to come any day now. I applied at the beginning of the winter, hoping to do a one month residency. This will be the third time I have applied. No, wait, the second time. I have applied to the MacDowell Colony twice as well. I’m not counting on it. I had written to them beforehand and asked them what the age range was in their last pool of selected artists. The oldest was 35. Yaddo was 40. I once applied to the Skowhegan School and the oldest ever was about 40. So I’m not counting on it.

I am hoping to make it to one of Peter Clothier’s One Hour/One Painting events – particularly the one on Miriam Wosk at SMMoA on March 23rd at 2:00 PM. Peter has a book out right now about the art of looking at art called Slow Looking. I highly admire Peter as both a writer and as a person who practices meditation regularly <– something I was never quite interested in until I began to know Peter and started to read his blog.

Anyway, I should get back to this canvas I’m painting. I am going to be hoarding the new work, so I will have to start thinking about what sort of pictures to insert into my posts. Here is a random elephant: