it’s been a few months since i wrote here last. i had been doing such a good job of making blog posts once or twice a month for a long time and then i don’t really know what happened, except to say life happened. the last thing i posted about was making my “last night a brass band saved my life” tshirts available again, right before jazz fest time – thanks to all who ordered – and then i guess jazz fest, lots of dog and cat sitting, and mutual aid volunteer work happened. i got busy, i completely abandoned cvp 2026 around week 6 (of 12), and i guess i forgot about this blog.
it’s now july. we’re in the thick of summer. it’s hot and humid as fuck, though we’ve been in a rainy pattern the past several days and yesterday we had some crazy flash flooding with 7 inches of water in less than an hour. thankfully i was at home and my street doesn’t flood. i’ve been trying to force myself back into the studio from time to time with varying degrees of success. i did make a cute little collage board book a la drew steinbrecher a few weeks ago and posted it on my instagram. i’m working on a second slightly larger one now. (the pics here are pages from that.)
it’s a fun, stress-free endeavor because it’s not the kind of thing you can sell, so i don’t approach it with that pressure of “omg i hope someone else likes this enough to buy it,” which sadly i carry with most of my painting and mixed media work. these were just for me, just for the fun of it, to try out a new project and use up some of the big box of gelli plate pulls and other various collage scraps i’ve collected over the past many years. for instance, the first image at the top of this blog is actually a cropped piece from one of my wet palette sheets after i’d scraped it of all usable paint and some of the paint blobs had dried. i then scribbled on it with a pencil and i just loved it so much. sometimes the things you pay the least attention to turn out to be your favorites.
the only other creative project i’ve been working on is prettying up some cardboard boxes for el pueblo nola, the mutual aid/community group i work with, for their back to school supply drive. i found some large pattern stencils in my stash and busted out some spray paint to put dots and triangles all over them to make them more eye-catching as donation boxes in businesses around town. you can see pics here and read more about the back to school drive here. not exactly high art but it was fun nonetheless. i have a few more i’ll be working on this week.
i’m hoping these little projects will get me back into my creative groove. i want to be painting, but every time i go in to my studio to start working on something, i’m just met with so much resistance and i feel blocked and even if i start playing around with paint, i’ve just got nothing. no juice. no energy for it. i put down some paint and i feel nothing. i have so many things “in process” that i’d like to work on, finish, or at least get closer to finished. add some layers to. but i’m just not feeling it. and i don’t know why exactly.
i know the only way to get back into it is to do it and yet i just can’t seem to make myself do it. so for now i just keep collaging and playing with my scraps and spray paint stenciling cardboard boxes. maybe i’ll pull the gelli plate back out and see if i can i can find some inspiration there.
i rejoined the art2life academy – now called the bloom studio academy cuz they’ve made the 24/7 bloom studio zoom room part of being in the academy – again in hopes of it helping me get back on my path. i can only afford it for a month or two though so i hope some magic happens soon. if i was regularly selling my artwork and making an income from it i’d feel ok about paying for it ongoing but i’m just so inconsistent with everything. it just ends up feeling like a luxury and also a waste of money at the same time. (it’s $77/month now for the membership.) so i’m gonna try to watch all the interviews and masterclasses that are new since i was in it last, so i can feel like i’m getting my money’s worth.
the world cup has been a fun distraction from and contrast to the shitshow of the world, i.e. toxic politics, climate collapse, wars, genocides, so many injustices, etc. but that is quickly coming to a close. sadly, none of the teams i was rooting for have made it to the semifinals. i guess i’m rooting for spain at this point.
my birthday is coming up in a month and i want to do something to celebrate and yet i have no idea what. i kinda wanna take a little roadtrip but also at the same time that feels like a) i can’t afford it, and b) too much work, and c) where would i even go? i’ll be 59 this year so maybe it’s a low key year and i won’t do anything. i dunno. perhaps my mood will improve by then.
i guess this is all i got for now. i’ll try to get back in the habit of updating here more often.