I am helping out some dear friends in Corrales/Albuquerque, New Mexico for a while. I will be here for an extended time. I brought my art materials but in light of the seriousness of my stay here, I am not sure how often i will get to them. I have always come here as a way to relax and dream. New Mexico is my happy place. This time is different. As i drive to a hospital or a rehabilitation center, grocery story, etc. i have to remind myself to look at those beautiful skies and mountains you love so much. I realize very clearly that places are important, but it is the people in your life that always take first place in our hearts.

I am late getting this in. I was able to take a week long educational workshop in Atlanta in June. It was at Georgia Tech at the Robert C. Williams Paper Museum complex. http://www.ipst.gatech.edu/amp. If you are interested in paper this is a wonderful museum. The workshop consisted of making a Japanese sugeta (screen for making paper), cooking and beating kozo and gampi fibers and pulling sheets of paper in the non-western tradition. I need a lot more practice. It was a great experience.

Workshop at the Robert C. Williams Paper Musuem

I have neglected my blog for many months, but I am about to go on a journey that will be unlike anything i have ever experienced and I want to document my feelings and the art that hopefully will be a healing experience for the loving friends I want to help. I will be traveling to my favorite place, New Mexico and i will be helping my best friend of 33 years whose husband was diagnosed with brain cancer three weeks ago. My other best friend, my husband is going to stay home and take care of our 3 pugs and our home while i am gone indefinitely. This is going to be a hard time. I want to write about Steve because he is an awesome artist who has taught me a lot over the years. I want to write about my dear friend Mary Ann who has been with me through our first years of teaching art together, the births of my children, divorce and marriage. She is my sister in every sense of the word. She is being so brave right now. We all know people in our lives who have had stage 4 cancer, but when it hits someone so close, it is a very surreal experience. Art is a healer and we will see how it takes care of all of us in the days to come. Pray for Steve and Mary Ann. Pray for your own loved ones. And make some art.

It has been a busy week. I have worked on crafty cloth wrapped baskets and sketched at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. (There was a guild meeting, book club and great lunches as well). What I haven't done is work on the dye monoprints that I started two weeks ago. I got side-tracked by a family funeral and then started the Color Theory class. I am too easily distracted by outside events. I often wonder how some people just seem to throw together so much work and it always looks great! It takes me forever to research my idea and try out my techniques before I finally get down to business. Maybe I'm too cautious. This week I will try to work on my color exercises and get back to monoprinting. I saw some beautiful colors at the garden's Climatron.

I am anxious to try and imitate some of those beautiful greens and reds together.

The Garden web site is: mobot.org

I am taking an online class with artist Judy Perez. judyperez.blogspot.com

It is a Color Theory class and I am learning a lot even though we just started. I think I've always taken color for granted and used it very intuitively. I don't think there is anything wrong with this, but I am starting to see where I could make better choices when I mix dyes. I think I have been very naive about how to make different colors. If you are an art teacher and your kids color wheels always look off, it's not them, it's the paint. I spent years wondering why we could never make a decent purple or green. Then tempera came out in magenta and turquoise! What a difference. Our color wheels started looking more like the "posters". (I forgot to say that there was a time when tempera paints only came in very basic colors, so this really dates me). I am looking forward to testing some of my new information on cloth. I am very fortunate in my life to be able to do this right now. If you are reading this, try playing with color mixing. It is very relaxing.

I am a reluctant blogger, but because of recent changes that are happening in and around me I thought this would be a good way to have another creative venue to work some things out. Even though I have said this before, I am almost 100% certain that this summer will be the last formal art class/course that I teach and after 35 years I leave with a lot of mixed emotions. Physically, this is the best thing I could do. So, I just have to get over myself. The up side is I have no excuses for not being a full time artist and that is really what this blog is all about. I will be posting this long awaited journey. Because I can't help myself, I'm sure I will have things for Art Educators from time to time, but it will primarily be a chance to solve problems instead of giving them, ask my own questions and make my own mistakes and most important continue to learn. The raven will continue to climb the ladder instead of flying off the deep end, not yet any way!