monday, and i am glad for the solace a busy week provides. it is hard to get too stressed out by looking too far down the road when you've got a lot to do. Und ich habe viel zu tun. still, i'd love to be able to stay home and paint today. i spent my entire sunday with the work. i got lost in a big graphite piece and a big oil painting for most of the day and spend a few hours reading anais nin's diary (volume 2). i drank tea and practiced my german and then went back to the canvas. on may 16th, we install "May Fairs" at Project One in San Francisco. me, megan woolfe (YAY!!!! hi megan!), charmaine olivia, and chelsea brown have teamed up to bring you one brilliant and beautiful collection of work, that's for sure. the show opens wednesday, may 18th, and i definitely want to see you. do come by and give me hugs. i get to install my Worry Roses (for my mother, for myself) again and I am OVERJOYED that so many people like the peice. i am absolutely honored to get a new wall to show it on. the more air-time this piece gets, the better. huh, mama? :)

and then june 2nd... another group show in huntington beach. GO! GO! GO! and i'm praying that, between these two shows, much of the work will find their new and perfect homes. there's a wide, dark threshold i need to cross inside The Work and i want to make sure as many of my babies are in safe hands and working their magic out in the world as possible before i cross it. but i guess that's not really something i can do much about. all i can do is put the work up on a wall. all i can do is trust it. all i can do is keep going, keep pushing, and keep sliding the graphite across the page.

for as much fun as i'm having being back in school and learning new things and having a more concrete daily schedule, i'm really looking forward to summer when i can spend entire days reading and writing again, drawing and crocheting, no homework to worry over, just the freedom of Practice. 3 weeks to go. but honestly, it is a pleasure to have this much art to care for and think about and worry over. a pleasure and an honor. absolutely.

and now- back to back school and work.

have a wonderful day!

dang!

oh, crazy life, crazy morning, crazy mourning, crazy minutes speeding by so fast! 3 weeks until finals. 3 weeks and then it is summer vacation. this first semester back on a college campus sped by at an unbelievably quick pace. between studying and working and working and looking for an apartment (still! though i think we may have finally found something this passed thursday. fingers crossed!) my head is reeling. i begin to stretch out the length of my long mornings on days i am able. days like today. the man is out and about and i am here, still in my polka dot pajamas, still sipping tea, still jumping back in bed with my notebook and pen, over and over again, refusing to let this part of the day come to a close, refusing to think about going to my retail gig this evening, keeping anais nin's diary within easy reach.

for as bad of a blogger as i've been, i've been an excellent writer in private. every morning i wake hungry for my notebook. every morning i move my pen along. and every night i've been curling up with anais' diary, turning page after page, copying entire passages in to my notebook to ingest, digest, roll around with as i sleep and dream and wake, as i become whatever it is i'm becoming. this Next, this Now.

there is a threshold waiting, breathing against my cheek, a crossing of sorts that needs to be made... and i have no clue how to do it or where this crossing even is. all i can think is that i must read as if my life depended on it. i must turn pages pages pages and be the best disciple i can be. all i can think is that i must become smarter, i must learn more, engage with words and textures and the wind on the other side of my window. i must be brazen and learn to stop caring so much about certain things- certain pleasantries, niceties, polite blah blah blahs that just get in the way, hurdles made of fear of abandonment, fear of hurting someone else, fear of being a disappointment, all the fears i was taught to have. i think of it more and more and it sickens me: the fears that get plugged in to children. but it is from this place of repulsion that i must jump forward in The Work. somehow i must catapult myself to the next level with The Work. all i can think is READ READ READ.

and in a little under 3 weeks i'll be installing a bit of work in a group show at Project One in the city. more on that in a few days but i'm super excited about it! i'm telling ya, life is nuts right now!

ich muss zeihnen! ich muss schrieben! Und ich muss den ganzen Tag studieren! ich habe ein Prufung am Mittwoch und ich habe veil zu tun! es ist verruckt!

inhale, exhale.

holiday retail job. painting commission. 4 days of non-stop rain. 2 shows at the end of january. preparations are being made. late nights. early mornings. no time to read. writing in parking lots. new year's resolutions list currently being made. counting the days. hang in there, friends. we will make it through.

busy is good

i just finished crocheting the last 25 roses for my wall installation at Slingshot which i will begin installing tonight. there are 300 roses total. it's a big piece. and inviting. the last time i made one of these (first and only, actually. until now.) people would walk up to the wall and lay against the roses. :) i'm excited to see the piece installed and may go ahead and work through the night to get it done. once it's up, i can focus all my attention on the new painting.

my schedule is completely irregular these days. so be it. i'm still getting everything done that i need to, it's just at different times of the day than it usually is. still running, still working, still getting good sleep, but i am in a race against the end of the year and I WILL WIN.