back again!

Amazing how times flies. And I get less productive. Terrible how our "real" jobs interrupt being creative and making art isn't it? My digital camera is on the fritz, so I've had difficulty photographing new work to post, but I will not be foiled. Hopefully I can get it fixed today. I'm trying not to be bogged down with the minutiae of daily life (bill paying, paper filing, etc.) that seems to sap all my artistic energy. Sprititually I'm trying to commit to some spiritual disciplines with a book called Spiritual Disciplines Devotional by Valerie E. Hess (IV Press). I've always been attracted to the practice of lectio divina, or devotional reading of the scriptures, but I've had real difficulty putting in the time to do it. Why is it so hard to carve out time for those activities we say we value so much? So I read and meditated on John 9, where the man born blind receives his sight, and I kept hearing "allow me to open your eyes." I don't yet know what that means, but I am hopeful that I can explore the implications for my personal life and my art. In what way do my eyes need to be opened? Here's an ATC I created last year.

inaugural post

"I love myself when I am laughing. And then again when I am looking mean and impressive." Zora Neale Hurston wrote this in a letter to Carl Van Vechten on December 10, 1934 about some photographs he took of her, and it's the title of the Zora Neale Hurston Reader edited by Alice Walker. I found her several years ago through Their Eyes Were Watching God and have read most of her work. As my graduate studies in literature seem to have me leaning in a Harlem Renaissance direction, I've continued to have Zora on the brain. I just like the way she lived on her own terms. Some thought she was brilliant, some crazy, some just didn't know what to make of her. At the risk of inappropriately comparing myself to the great Zora, sometimes I feel quite misunderstood myself. Anywho . . . with this blog I am committing to spend time on the activities that replenish me, that feed me spiritually: connection with God and meditation on his word, writing, altered art . . . and who knows what new frontiers may come. This image is a "paper doll" I made with instructions from one of the Somerset Studio Gallery magazines.