could I be more absent?

Yes, I'm still alive. (If anyone is still checking in here...)

Haven't written anything whole and/or complete in awhile. Tessa has been quite the nightowl lately so I've been feeling sluggish and grumpy. There are moms out there who have overcome, so I know there's a way, but I just get so mired in childcare and housework that I can't get anything fun or creative accomplished. Sigh...

Birth of Venus skipped a week of rehearsal because we were all (!) sick. I was worried that we'd lose momentum and everyone would be like ah ferget it, but no...we met last week like long lost friends. Alex said "My quality of life was seriously lower last week because we didn't meet." Aww! Love those gals.

I've been making Spring greeting cards. Behold:

gift

I made this for my sis for her 30th birthday. I draped it in disclaimers, about how it was craft and not art, that it was amateur and I really need to get a straightedge, that I wouldn't be offended if she didn't hang it.

She loved it. She said it was her favorite present she'd ever received. I told her if she was just trying to make me feel better, I was sufficiently duped.

art journal

See more of my art project here. You can watch a slideshow, or just go to my photostream to see the photos individually with some comments.

Confession

I've been very spotty with the daily pages this week. Done 'em some days, not others, partially some days. And the tasks? No, haven't really gone there. Sure I've daydreamed about five more lives (a botanist, an Italian contessa, a biodynamic farmer/surfer in Hawaii, a midwife, a trainer of service dogs)...but I do that outside of the AW, so it hardly counts! Artist's Date has yet to happen. Am I even qualified to say I'm doing The Artist's Way this week?!

However. I am working on a art project! It's a jornal for my friend's 40th birthday. It's a very fine, handmade, leather-bound book that I picked up at Jazz Fest a few years ago and inside I am collaging (is that a word?) selected pages. I am in the layout phase right now; no glue has been spilled although scissors have been wielded with abandon. It's my first project of this type and I am LOVING IT. Oh, the paper. The words. I get so turned on by paper and words, text and texture, color and context. I am staging imagescapes that I think will resonate with some of my friend's passions: Italy, flowers, and our shared love of the film A Room with a View.

I'll post some pictures of it when I have a chance. Until then, wishing you all beauty and inspiration.