I’ve been challenged by my collaborative partner, Kyle, to do and post one blog worthy thing a week for the month of August.  I haven’t been posting lately, because frankly, I haven’t been in the studio at all.  Sometimes I feel like I build myself this karmic debt to the studio when I haven’t put in my time.  Eventually, that imaginary karma promissory note balloons in my mind and I develop an actual block about doing ANYTHING in the studio.  This is not good for me for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that art is something that helps put me on a more level playing field in my life.

What I have been doing lately, is gardening.  We have a huge, lush plot in the community garden.  It is immensely satisfying for me to just be present in that space and see the myriad crops we have planted and how well they are doing.  Last week, we harvested some swiss chard that had big beautiful rainbow colors in it, as well as tons of tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, peppers, carrots, etc.  Our harvest is going to be bountiful, and we didn’t even really have the best luck putting the garden in this year!  I’ve been taking a ton of photographs because the colors are saturated and beautiful and the subject matter makes me so happy.

What I have been doing lately, is gardening.  We have a huge, lush plot in the community garden.  It is immensely satisfying for me to just be present in that space and see the myriad crops we have planted and how well they are doing.  Last week, we harvested some swiss chard that had big beautiful rainbow colors in it, as well as tons of tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, peppers, carrots, etc.  Our harvest is going to be bountiful, and we didn’t even really have the best luck putting the garden in this year!  I’ve been taking a ton of photographs because the colors are saturated and beautiful and the subject matter makes me so happy.

Also, this last week, I received a handmade card from a friend of mine attending a workshop at the Penland School of Crafts, and in my book, such a card deserves an equal card as it’s due, so today I sat down and dashed off a card in response using inks, brushes and my new B point Speedball nib.  It was a little nothing thing to do, but it got me in the studio and got me creating a thing without the looming payment on my studio-karma bank account.  I think it broke me out of my studio avoidance holding pattern.

The silly thing is that creating things makes me unaccountably happy.  Especially when I know that what I create is a part of me that someone else will enjoy.  I’m going to pop over to post it this afternoon and send a little piece of me off into the universe.