A Thing Or Two About Resilience
Thank you also to everyone who bought work in my studio sale! I am so grateful. I love knowing my work will find special places in the corners of your homes and studios and office spaces.
Above are a selection of the pieces that went to new homes in the sale. I had no idea that nearly everything would go in a matter of hours in the pre-sale. That really ROCKED, and it made the fact that my house is being torn apart a little more bearable....
The pipes bursting caused so, so much damage.
The beautiful floors T and I put in ourselves seven years ago have to be ripped out across most of the first level of our home and replaced. Each board buckled up like the hull of a shallow canoe. My studio needs a new wall and new insulation; the garage ceiling needs to be replaced.
Everything will be topsy-turvy for the next couple of weeks as things get pulled apart, and then put back together anew.
But what all this has had me thinking about lately is how even this crazy situation is completely a universal experience. Life happens like this to everyone. Maybe not these circumstances in particular; this timing; these muddy roads and wet walls. But it happens, the topsy-turvy, the tilting of things. Things get pulled apart and then put back together for all of us.
And the truth is, I've been through worse, harder, sadder, more disruptive things and gradually I've acquired a soul-memory for what the beautiful word resilience means. Things will shift, tilt, and warm to become something bright and new. This will happen. Inevitably.
We spring back like the saplings that spend the winter bent beneath deep snow. We spring back with the the inevitable sap of the future swelling up. A thaw will come, and the air will fill with the singular scarlet call of cardinals, and little rivulets of snowmelt will rush down banks and gullies, and then the each twig will whip upright, shaking off snow showers and spring back.
What I'm excited about is possibility this year (even though I'm dreading the forced renovations!) I can feel things are shifting. New possibilities are murmuring.
What possibility do you most hope to manifest this year?
{ STUDIO SALE }
Hello Friends! In celebration of my 35th birthday, I'd like to invite you to my pay-what-you-can, first-come, first-served studio sale! I'm so excited to put this work out into the world, and to know it will find homes in your studios and living rooms and kitchens. I so hope you'll find something you love and enjoy. xoxo! ~ Christina
On Turning 35
Thirty five feels like something. An arrival. A beginning, maybe. In my head 35 has always been the mythical age I pictured when I thought of what it meant to be "grown up." It was the age I pictured I would be, when, with due process and appropriate seriousness I'd take up all the tasks and undertakings I'd put off in my twenties for more impulsive and less permanent things. It was always the age of someday, always the age I pictured my future self becoming before now. But now I'm here at that someday. And it struck me with both surprise and odd delight when I realized that I've stopped picturing someday as any other day than right now. It's true. For whatever reason I've stopped imagining "someday" as an imagined time that exists at any point in my future. Instead of putting things off for some future self to take up, I'm aware now, with each passing day, that there is a grave, bittersweet river of time passing through me. I have smile lines now. Some days I have dark circles under my eyes. I have stretch marks. I have boys who are no longer babies. I have kids who dress themselves and hold my hands and tell fart jokes and kiss my cheeks. I have a man who I have loved for thirteen years. I have the memory of the landscape of his body at the backs of my lids when I close my eyes, and it is once familiar territory and still new to me. I have days passing, and a dog, and ice on the windshield and sisters and friends with new babies, and these things all insist upon the utterly and poignantly present tense of right now. The minutes are what matters. Today is some day. Tomorrow is someday. Someday is whatever day it will be when I wake up after today, my eyes blinking with the milky morning light. So I've arrived at someday. I like that. I like that I've arrived at a point in time when the extent of what I've told myself about my life has been reached--as though the fragile nets of genetic inheritance and childhood could only be cast so far and claim so many of the little silver bellied fish of dreams. I've caught some and others have gone slipping through the nets, and now here I am, arms flung wide in front of the wild, wide, wide ocean. Is this what it's like for most people? Is 35 the age when time stops in your mind, and only keeps on in your body? Is this when the incongruence begins, when the tenuous alignment of self in heart and self in mirror break apart, one timeline moving on, quite fast, the other staying where it is, gradually slipping backwards into the past? It feels like such a feat of magic: to age, to grow, to become novice and new and experience and old all at once. 35 here I am.
Like I've done for the past many years, I've made a new list 0f things to attempt and manifest before my next birthday... and I went back over my list from this past year . This years list was a bit of a catch-all. I surprised myself with several things that I was able to cross off--including watching the sunset on the top of a mountain (in Hawaii) and leaving the country (a weekend in Quebec.) And as is always the case, there were several things I almost achieved--like painting with encaustic (a new friend has volunteered to teach me, we just need to find the time!) and screen printing (I now work in a place that has a gorgeous screen printing studio in the basement, and it's only a matter of time.) Other things were a far cry, and to be honest, I never had the time to even consider them like developing film and throwing a set of bowls. Maybe this year. And still others just evaded me entirely--like hearing Elizabeth Strout, and painting the rooster series (a goal I've had on my list for a few years now, but still, to no avail.) This year is, I have a feeling will surprise me. It's an open field; an empty garden plot; a shore that the highest tide has left exposed for wandering. It will be a year for wonder. A year of finding things, and mapping them, of following new stars. A year of germination and cultivation. A year to fertilize the new bright shoots of possibility and plans with patience and perseverance. I haven't always been easy with such things. With the wide open. With the unknown. But one thing that came from the process of writing my book, was learning how to sit in the same place with uncertainty without expectations; to hold my attention there without fleeing or fluttering or forcing anything. Nothing about writing the book, or promoting it, or about the material itself was something I was prepared for. And perhaps that's partly why I've arrived here on the cusp of my birthday without expectation, just here, with a certain gladness, even as I came home tonight, tired after a long week to find that our pipes froze and burst, and water is pouring through our living room ceiling. At some other point, I might have raged against the injustice, the timing, the way things pile themselves, one on top of another (I'm also feeling a wee bit sick.) But now, no matter. This is just it, this is someday. This is the someday of my life: broken pipes and subzero temperatures, delicate pink sunsets and the tenderest kisses, chicken salad with bib lettuce, white wine in a glass without a stem, Hemmingway read by the quarter chapter, boys in mis-matched pajamas, the smell of woodsmoke and also of wet drywall, the feeling of thirst at the back of my throat, the restlessness that tugs at me like tides, the longing for being near a shore with tides, the eagle I looked up to see out the window today, the dog lying with all four paws in the air. This, this is my beautiful, reckless, heartbreaking, perfect life.
I'm so glad you join me here to be a part of it! Thank you always! ~ Christina
{ One True Thing }
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
—Ernest Hemmingway
The quiet is on purpose
The quiet is on purpose. I've been gathering and holding close the moments as they come. Time for stillness. Evenings with books. The occasional afternoon when I can slip away at work and walk with my turquoise Hunter boots fingerless gloves down to the peer, over snowy grass or mud or pebbles, to watch the water move and feel the sky grow bigger there, unobstructed by things made by the human hand.
The quiet is my way of starting out the year: between the new year and my birthday, 26 days exactly to dwell and ruminate; to take inventory of where I've been and where I'm headed. What I've done, and what I long to do.
And maybe this year, more than any other year, I've needed the quiet. Craved it, like a hunger, all the way down to my bones after nearly four years of non-stop creating. First Sprout, then Kickstarter, then grad school, then writing A Field Guide To Now, then a new job, then the book launch, and now, finally here. A new year. I'll be 35 at the end of this week.
That feels significant. A year for becoming... in new ways. Hence the reason I've changed things up around here design wise. I've been wanting things to be simple. To be just enough, nothing more. Room for art and words photographs and enough white space also for some breathing room. I hope you like it.
I'm also planning some truly lovely, simple things for this space. A little daily collaboration with one of my dearest friends. The most wonderful interview series I could ever imagine, slowly coming together with some of the most incredible creatives I know.
And quite soon, quite soon indeed, I'll be having a pay-what-you-can studio sale, to make way in my small corner of the world for new work. If you'd like to be among the very first to know--and get a special sneak peak before it goes live for everyone else, sign up for my newsletter here. I'll be sending an update out before the end of the week, and you don't want to miss it. Really.
A glimpse of Oahu
It's nearly impossible not to feel homesickness for this place; for the way the ocean made everything right, tousling hair, salt-slicking shoulders, lulling us to sleep at night. It's hard not to long for the way the trade winds blew, the way our became curly, and there was always the ocean to watch and fruit to cut, sweeter than from the mainland, with fingers to lick afterwards.
A little hibernation
Hello friends,
I've been missing you! And I've been enjoying some quiet time offline. If you follow me on Instagram, you've had a peak at my adventures in Hawaii. I'll share more about that here in the coming days perhaps, but for now I wanted to say that I'll be back soon. I'm taking this month--the first month of the new year, which also happens to be my birthday month, to dwell and reflect and hibernate a bit.
xo / Christina
Holding quiet in my heart
I have so much to say. And yet so little. Words don't measure up. They take flight, like birds lifting off a wire; the score of their song like a smudge of ink, a blur of notes across the treble clef of lines. Here is what I know: I was deeply, personally affected by the tragedy in Sandy Hook. I was affected in ways I can hardly put words around. As I heard the news, I was there, body memory replaying detail (look back through the archives; it's all there). And also: I interviewed at Sandy Hook the year I graduated from college. It was my first job offer in fact, though I passed it up, eager to work in a charter school with inner city kids. Still, I remember the art on the walls. The freckled face of a red-headed boy; the blonde pigtails of a small girl.
And then I found that one of my friends (one of the first of my friends to have children after I did) lost her nephew in the tragedy. A chubby, bright-faced boy with a smile so infectious I'd catch myself often grinning back at him, in the photos she would post on Facebook, of her son and his cousin: arm wrestling, jumping in the pool, tucking in to candy on Easter, or sitting together on the back stoop.
It's been so personal, so utterly heartbreaking, that I've been unable to gather words in any adequate way. I've been moved by so many posts flitting around the Internt. And I have so much compassion, and so much simultaneous rage. Mental health. Hours of brutal video games. Gun control. There are dots, like terrible constellations to connect.
I saw first hand the way the system fails: the way the boys (and sometimes the girls too) who need the most help, are almost always met with isolation and medication and discipline that is reactive and restrictive instead of healing and supportive. Families fragment. Things fall apart. The center doesn't hold.
Here we are.
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I am breathing. I am looking out at the rain soaked grass and letting the raindrops and the grass blades and the dozens of wind-tossed birds be my prayer. I am letting my prayer be the familiarity of ordinary things, and the way these things reclaim us, every one: pulling on socks, fart jokes, the dishes, sticky lollypops. The prayer of ordinary things. That is what I am holding in the quiet of my heart for the families who lost their loved ones; their children, their sweet babes, their mentors, teachers, friends, lovers, daughters, wives.
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I've been gathering this quiet, and holding it, while trying to still hold close my commitment to self care: to cultivating habits that hold, even when things fall apart.
I've been running daily, and writing morning pages scribbled in script with a ball point pen.
On Self Care and Reclaiming Creative Habits
Oh hello there... I'm sorry I've been so incommunicado of late.
It's just... it's gradually hitting me: how cumulatively exhausted I am after finishing my book, and finishing graduate school, and starting my new job, all in the span of ten months or so. Followed by juggling new schedules, and preK for Sprout, and long daily commutes, and book promotion stuff (which while totally wonderful, has also been completely draining.) {{ In case you missed it, this week I was featured on Balancing the Tide. And on Lesley Riley's Art & Soul Radio Show. }}
And so, the year winds down, I've been feeling compelled to really listen to the whispers at the back of my heart that are telling me to explore what self care means.
And what I'm learning is that while I know how to put myself first--career and work-wise, I'm not nearly so good at at putting my soul first... and what my soul and body crave isn't always in line what my mind pushes for, compelled by self-discipline and productivity inspired momentum.
What I'm learning is that I'm not so great at saying no. Or disappointing. Or redrawing boundaries to give space for the tender, soft, quiet parts of my soul to flourish again.
So I've been trying to do a little bit of that over the past handful of days. I've been...
- unsubscribing from e-newsletters - deleting rss feeds I no longer follow or find joy in - tying up loose ends and threads for various projects - dancing in the kitchen with T. - saying no more that I'm saying yes - Going to bed earlier and trying consistently to get more sleep - spending a lot of time giggling on the couch with my boys - relishing the little rituals that preparing for the holidays offer
I've also been focusing on returning to the two things I know always balance me: Running and morning pages. Waking up early and bleary eyed, and curling in a robe in the big white chair in my studio as the sky turns to pink. I'm still not in the habit of either, but already things feel closer to balance.
I'm curious: how do you nurture yourself when your reserves are over-drawn?
A glimpse at right now:
California was rain. At turns soft and steady and other times torrential, filling the concave places curbside with wide lakes the color of coffee, to be splashed at unsuspecting passer-by as cars churned passed.California was palm trees and bougainvilleas and trumpet flowers and a wild abundance of deciduous trees still with golden leaves even in early December, the sidewalks strewn with flecks of yellow like so many fallen stars. It was a trip on the tail-end of the stomach flu; it was dizziness at the airports and sleeping in uncomfortable positions on the plane, and all of it was worth it to see my dearest friends with new babies, and to do a reading in a beautiful loft, celebrating my book with the people who knew me when I was who I was then: a California girl, back in high school, with windy hair and a crooked-toothed smile. I hadn't seen some of them in 16 years, but seeing them again felt familiar in the way riding a bike is familiar after not riding for years. You just know. You remember. There is body memory to the hugs; and a timber and depth to the laughter. It was the first time, really, that I felt myself reveling, a little bit, in the accomplishment of writing a book. It was a lovely way to wind the season down: seeing my book in the hands of friends and loved ones. And now I'm back, with rain here too at the end of this dirt road. The warmest winter we've had here in my memory; the ground still soft and the air sweet with decomposing leaves and ozone as the wind blows in and the clouds lift, revealing the cerulean bowl above. In the morning, the boys run down the hall to find what the Advent Fairy has brought. She slips into our house on fairy wings, bringing special notes and tiny gifts; and after dinner the boys write loving notes to her: Bean, with uneven printing and phonetically spelling and a zillion questions about her wings and adventures and magical names; and Sprout, who has just learned to write the letters of his name, practices them gleefully on snippets of colored construction paper that he carefully cuts. There are just a handful of days really; two weeks exactly before we slip away again for a holiday adventure as a family. And between now and then a hundred things, the least of which is laundry--though it's taking over our lives. I can't remember the last time it was all folded and put away; still every night we have dinner together and over shrimp tacos with lime and mango, T and I laugh and listen and map our future--here, and then somewhere beyond here--and then the laundry doesn't really matter at all. Instead what matters is going to bed early, the warm coffee-colored fur of the dog against my hand, silverware standing like soldiers in tidy rows in the dishwasher to be cleaned, and plotting creative collaborations with friends. Here's a peak at some new work. Nothing makes me happier lately than having a brush in my hand. How have you been? What does this time of year look like for you?
All kinds of fun & crazy
See how I snuck those in at the end?
That part goes something like this: The day before Thanksgiving Bean wound up at the hospital for x-rays. The night before in a moment of pure giddy flail he'd leaped (and fallen) over the space heater in his bedroom ("I should have listened to you, Mommy" he said with regret later) and still wincing and hopping about in the morning T brought him to the doctor's while I was at work. Of course, Sprout went along too, and the three of them spent much of their day in one waiting room or another while Bean was x-rayed and fitted for a boot/brase with the prognoses of a "buckle fracture." And then... wait for it... just as T was leaving the hospital, Sprout suddenly declared his stomach hurt, and then proved it, in a vibrant display in the parking lot.
Determined to get the ingredients he'd set out to get for the stuffing he was on the line to bring for Thanksgiving dinner the next day, he hauled both boys into town, arriving an hour before I usually leave work with two ashen boys and a very fragrant car. Needless to say, I left work early and drove them home, and we spent the rest of the night on the couch, Sprout clutching a bowl, and Bean muttering about his foot, while I read to both of them.
Thanksgiving day we awoke to milky sunlight, having slept late, and to the sounds of two very chipper boys playing contentedly in their room. Neither seemed the worse for the wear and Thanksgiving day passed serenely with all the usual delights of family and feasting. Friday was a blur. We cut a tree that recently fell across our driveway. We had dinner at the inlaws. There was even a nap. And then Saturday brought round two of vomit, that occured shortly after the most acrobatic lunch of the weekend, with inlaws and twin nephews at a noodle house. Roadside noodles for Bean. Sigh.
Sunday Bean was bright-eyed and bushy tailed as is his usual manner, and both boys painted for a while in my studio, where I holed up for most of the day--painting four canvases all told, and making this video for the Squam Art Workshops blog--which is the most fun I've ever had doing an interview with someone remotely.
Sunday was also the day my dear friend Jessica had her baby boy--and that news set me to wondering (at the fact that when Jessica has an an almost 8 year old, like my Bean is now, I'll have an ALMOST 16 YEAR OLD, and holy moly, that is pure craziness) and also to remembering the birth stories of both my boys.
I am exited beyond words to be heading out to California this weekend see her, and Willow and, fingers crossed, a stop at Teahouse and a peak at my gorgeous Pacific ocean too. Oh California. I'll never stop loving you.
So, there you have it. The most rambling of updates. It's been far too long. I keep waiting for the perfect opportunity to slip back in and get all caught up, but the perfect opportunity is never, and so here you are. Rambling. Update.
How was your Thanksgiving? What are you looking forward to this December?
Caption this photo:
An outtake for a super awesome + secret photo project from the weekend. Best caption wins... the right to ask me 5 questions.
Read, set, go!
What love looks like today
We've known eachother since we were 21.
I still remember how shortly after we started dating we agreed that we were each allowed to cull a few "deal breaker" items from each other's closet. He insisted a pair of my very awkward and proper pointy-toed lace-up shoes needed to go; and I swore that if he ever wore the glasses with frames that went below his cheekbones again, I'd have to break up with him.
Still, we were complete dorks. I wore sneakers all the time, and sweatshirts that were perpetually 3 sizes too big. He wore khaki pants with pleats and suspenders. We both wore a lot of spandex (mountain and road riding.)
Once he grew a goatee at my request (don't ask.) Then I accidentally dyed my hair carrot red the weekend he proposed. We were both still baby-faced: whatever all-nighters we pulled they didn't amount to anything near the cumulative tired that would come with little ones, marking our eyes with raccoon rings and crows feet.
The years in between then and now have flown by in a blur, and many of them are recorded here in the archives. How we moved here with a 6 month old. How we made our own rituals. The way we fought. The way we laughed. How we adored watching our first kid discover his world. Buying our house here and gutting it. Creating this home from scratch. Navigating depression. Being tossed headlong into financial uncertainty. Finding out I was pregnant. Having our second baby. Quitting. Starting. A book. Graduate school. A new job. Graduating. Another new job. Finding purpose. Co-piloting. Always becoming.
And now here we are on the other side of those pell-mell early years suddenly, with kids big enough now to leave behind for long enough to reclaim the spark and delight that caused us to flirt, and say yes, and make babies in the first place. Mmm-hmmm.
New Orleans was exactly that. Sun drenched, with enough time for a nap on Friday, and then music and shrimp and grits, and daiquiris after running (because that's the recovery drink of champions, right?) and lots of laughing and hand holding and ducking into doorways and kissing and people watching and all that good stuff that happens when the "Do Not Disturb" sign goes up and doesn't come down until 11AM the next day. Mmmm. Yes.
Then of course, there was the flight back--three legs in all that took us to Minnesota and then Illinois. But still, even that was fun, sitting in cramped seats side by side and talking and talking like we'd just met. If having kids does anything to people who are in love, it makes them appreciate what a boon uninterrupted hours are--because on an average day around here to finish a sentence feels miraculous, let alone to have a conversation about poetry and possibility. Several uninterrupted hours? Amazing. And so worth it. Even though reality hit the minute we touched down in Vermont, and all the work we'd left behind had apparently mated and produced more work.
Since autumn this has been our commitment--to ourselves and each other. To nourish, to sustain, and to rediscover.
Tell me, how do you nourish your relationship with the one you love?
Uneven tempo
It was magical to be away, and upon return everything collides: parent-teacher conferences, busy schedules, and everyone in the house sick with one form or another of a nasty virus that's been going around. Now, trying to catch up. That's what vacation always does for me, like the few seconds of pause between fast-tempoed songs on an album. I'm looking forward to the weekend. To sharing about New Orleans, to getting artwork ready for my studio sale, and to making a bonfire. Right now though, I still need to make it through today and tomorrow.
Music always helps, and I'm dying for some new tunes.
What are you loving right now?
Off on an adventure + some inspiration for the weekend:
T and I are off on another adventure this weekend. Actually, T has been away all week on a business trip, and I'm slipping off to join him in New Orleans--a city neither of us has ever been to. There will be a pool, and a verandah (I've always loved that word) and enough shrimp and grits and jazz to fill both belly and soul. I'm so excited.
While I'm away, here's a little inspiration for your weekend:
With the weather suddenly growing cold, I want to make these Instant Wristies. Plus, if you don't know Maya's beautiful little corner of the blogosphere, spend some time there. It's lovely. This project is brilliant. I can't wait to get my copy. These thought-provoking questions about motherhood and art. This series of mama and baby (self) portraits by the incredibly talented photographer Nirrimi. This post from my blog archives: "On Motherhood and Messes, Creative Process and Apple Pie" And this post from Marthe: "Scenes From a Life: When Nothing Is Certain, Everything Is Possible" Also, this is so smart and silly, I actually want one.
xoxo, Christina
PS: I'll be posting heaps of photos on Instagram.
A Field Guide To Now: What this book is about
It's a crazy, amazing, surreal thing: to hold your first book in your hands, the book you've spent months writing, and say simply, this is a book about ______________. In this case that fill-in-the blank can be filled with so many things: wonder, heartache, sweetness, jammy little-boy hands, longing, painting, making messes, spilling open, laughter, learning to fly, navigating uncertainty, nurturing a creative practice, growing big within small moments, finding solace, baking bread, living intentionally, and praising the simple utter glory of each singular day.
But simply, truly, I wrote this book you.
Yes you. It's for... Anyone who is hungry to be an apprentice to their own abundant life. Creative, adventurous souls who know the simultaneous tug of wanderlust, and the desire to put down roots and claim a place as home. Anyone with the desire to discover or reclaim your creative pulse — amidst the overwhelm and distractions and responsibilities in their daily life. Mamas (and dads) who want to re-locate themselves beyond the boundaries of perpetual giving and neediness and messes and wonderment that raising young children demand. Anyone with a dream of a creative project or bold undertaking (this book is proof: it's possible.)
* * *
And as we head into the holiday season that is inevitably filled with busyness and rushing about, family and friends, days filled to the brim with making and doing, I hope this book can be a gift for you: of rest and wonder, and also a guide book of sorts, for being in the small ordinary moments, documenting them, and discovering yourself through them anew.
The smallest big things + A Giveaway!
Navigating motherhood and creativity is something that I'm always trying to do, and today I'm excited to share Renee Touga's e-book, Nurturing Creativity: A Guide For Busy Moms, that will prompt, and motivate, and inspire you to make the most of your busy moments with little ones.
Renee has generously offered me 2 copies of Nurturing Creativity: A Guide For Busy Moms, to give away to my readers!
Leave a comment to enter, and I'll pick the winner's at random tonight. Enjoy!
xoxo, Christina
UPDATED: And the winners are: Emily and Sandy!
Soon and now
Soon. I keep saying that word. I like the way it rhymes with moon, the way it has a a softness in the middle--that holds the milky belly of a promise of time to come. Soon, like a an elastic band: the hope of it expanding and contracting with each passing day, the target always moving. Soon, like pebbles look under water: the way they appear closer from the surface, than they do from beneath it. Soon snow. Soon lovemaking. Soon holidays. Soon sudden laughter. Soon time off. Soon air travel. Soon the streets of unfamiliar cities. Soon a feeling finishing. Soon starting other things. Soon running. Soon paint. Soon night.
It's a word that belies the present. It's a word that moves like a mirage. It's a word that's full of home. It's a word that makes the skeletons and sweet bread of dreams.
I'm here, at the cusp of soon now, feeling how that word is an excuse, a target, an arrow, a pair of wings.
* * *
Studio Update: A Field Guide To Now Blog Tour
One of the best things about having made a book to share with the world, is that it has connected, or reconnected me some incredibly wonderful kindred creatives. It's made me feel lucky and grateful beyond words to have their support, grace, and insight. I hope you'll enjoy exploring their sites and worlds as much as I do:
A few posts you might have missed last week:
And many coming up guest posts, reviews + giveaways*:
Renee Tougas at Fun In My Back Yard :: November 7th
Amy Bowers at Mama Scout :: November 7th
Michelle at A Way Of Being :: November 8th
Anna + Ian at Life On The Green Line :: November 12th
Meghan Davidson at Life Refocused :: November 13th Jessica Brogan at In Search Of Dessert :: November 14th
Veronica Armstrong :: November 15th
Art & Soul Radio with Lesley Reily :: December 4th *Many others to come as well!
Also, this is a must read:
"How To Support The Work Of Someone You Respect" by Dan Blank
How it is:
The Decision
There is a moment before a shape hardens, a color sets. Before the fixative heat of kiln. The letter might still be taken from the mailbox. The hand held back by the elbow, the word kept between the larynx pulse and the amplifying drum-skin of the room's air. The thorax of an ant is not as narrow. The green coat on old copper weighs more. Yet something slips through it-- looks around, sets out in the new direction, for other lands. Not into exile, not into hope. Simply changed. As a sandy track-rut changes when called a Silk Road: it cannot be after turned back from.
-- Jane Hirshfield