yet another post in which I catch you up…

…though I am sure that I don’t have any readers left here since I’ve been so hit or miss with my blogging. (If you’re still out there, please comment and let me know!)

Tonight, I had an idea for a blog post and headed over here. Realizing I haven’t posted since early May, I had to sit for a minute, staring at the screen, trying to figure out why. I could have sworn I had written lots of things, but then I remembered what a long, hard summer it was. In mid-May, I learned that my awesome friend and mentor, Chuck, passed away, after battling congenital heart disease. It hit me hard because I had just seen him in April, albeit in his hospital bed, and he looked and sounded good. At least I got that last visit with him, unlike a number of others who have gone before him and I always feel pangs of regret about those folks.

Chuck was always so supportive of my work (he loved the prayer flags!), whether it was the web work or more hands-on creative endeavors. I feel so much loss every time I think about him. Same goes for my brother-in-law, Andy, who passed away at the end of May. Andy was also very supportive of my work, though he was more subdued about it. His passing was (and still is) a huge shock for my husband’s family and though I clearly didn’t know him for as long, or as well as they did, there are days that I can barely get myself out of bed to face the day if I think too hard or long about Andy.

Luckily, we still have our little bundle of energy, publicly known as Baby New Year. I’d show you a photo, but she’s a foster child and we’re obliged to maintain her privacy. She is now 15 months old and so cute it’s painful! 🙂 She’s also bullheaded, funny, smart and intense. We love her lots and she keeps me hopping.

All of that adds up to me being scatterbrained and all over the place, both mentally and emotionally. Not much art has progressed this summer, though I have been journaling. The past few weeks, I’ve gotten behind, but my hope is to photograph some of the pages next week and get them up in my flickr albums.

I shouldn’t say that NO art has been made. I’ve been busy organizing workshops with out-of-state artists and this summer, we hosted Julie Fei-Fan Balzer, Kelly Kilmer and Leighanna Light. Leighanna’s workshops were just this past weekend and I have a few photos of my creations to share here in this post.

There are a few draft posts in my dashboard that I do need to finish up and I have some more workshop photos to share as well, so stay tuned for those!