the dirt

Anyone who has moved homes, changed schools, left one phase of their life for the next knows, transitions are tough.

As I type this post, I’m thinking of the 500 other things that need to be done after hitting publish. I know that this is a temporary situation and I’m SO excited for what the future brings as we shake up our whole lives but in the meantime, I’m tired.

Shuffling between two studio spaces, while still running a business out of one of them and fixing up the other has become exhausting. We’ve been in this mode for a few months now and I can feel my body responding to it. Waking up sore and exhausted from carrying boxes at the same time feeling weak from a lack of exercise. My daily 2 hour dog hikes have turned into 30 minute dog walks, my weekly visits to the climbing gym have turned into a once a month event. I find myself dreaming of time for yoga classes and long backpacking trips.

At the same time, we are also getting our home ready to sell. A place that we’ve lived for over 12 years, a place where we built our marriage, and a place that I built my business. That’s a lot to leave behind. We’ve spent weeks touching up cracks and painting over stains that we’ve lived with forever but now seem like eyesores. Throughout this process, we’ve also realized that the heart of our home has not been so much about the living space as much as the creative space. It’s the art on the walls, the well used work tables in the studio and the plants thriving in the garden that hold the highest value in our hearts.

All of this packing, planning, organizing and sorting has left little time for making new art, traveling or adventuring. Last year we left the country 3 times and made multiple trips to the east coast, not to mention dozens of camping and backpacking trips around California. This year, not so much. We’ve been on a self imposed travel ban so we could focus on making this big life transition. Now we have itchy feet and adventures piling up on the to-do list. We hope that letting go of the responsibilities of home ownership and being a little more nomadic about where we sleep while using our new studio (aka: Base Camp) as a touchstone will give us the freedoms for more art making, traveling and adventuring.

I’m normally not a very nostalgic person, but as I head into the final week of classes at my home studio, say goodbye to students and sign the papers to officially put our house on the market, I’m flooded with memories. The physical and emotional exhaustion of all of this change happening at the same time is very, very real. So yeah, transitions are tough but the knowledge that we have purposefully chosen this path tells me that it will all be worth it and that we are very ready for the adventures that lie ahead.

Looking forward to sharing those adventures with you…

Local Santa Cruz artist Kirk McNeill along with his team of designers and fabricators have created a forged metal sculpture of hammerhead sharks dubbed the Sharky-Go-Round to bring awareness to the cruel act of shark finning. 100 million sharks are killed each year for soup. Their fins are cut off and they are thrown back in the ocean to die slowly. Sharks are at the top of the food chain in virtually every part of every ocean. In that role, they keep populations of other fish healthy and in proper proportion for their ecosystem. Where sharks are eliminated, the marine ecosystem loses its balance. This sculpture hopes to raise awareness of this issue at Burning Man 2016, and places beyond! The concept includes ten sharks turning slowly and majestically above the playa, in stark contrast to a single shark, finless and dead on the base.

On a personal note, I have slowly seen the sculpture come to life right around the corner from my own new studio space and it is impressive! The skill in the fabrication of this piece is incredible, the sharks swimming against the blue sky is beautiful and the message behind the work is dear to my heart too. #missionblue

Support this project via the Indiegogo campaign HERE…

We have made such amazing progress on the new space, that we are ready to start moving in!

The new walls that are dividing the clay areas from the non-clay areas are up, they’ve been sheeted with plywood and the recycled doors are installed. Next up is painting those new walls and sheeting the ‘ceiling’ with a thin clear plastic which will keep the clay dust out but still keep us compliant with the fire code. Then we get to move everything in! Beyond setting things up and getting organized in the new space, we also need to get the kiln wired in properly, the new sandblaster set up and get water running to a sink, so there is a lot to be done. I keep reminding myself that my current studio evolved over years and that this new studio will evolve too, it doesn’t all have to happen at once.

There are still 3 more weeks of Summer Workshops and Adult Clay Classes at the Aptos Studio, but things have definitely started to change on this end too as I’ve slowly taken one truck load at a time over to the new space. I think the biggest visual change is the Vine Series sculptures that have been growing up the outside studio walls for 10 years have now been packed away. I think I patched up 1000 holes in the process. It’s amazing to go through 12 years of art, projects, supplies and decide what still has value and what can be recycled or repurposed, a necessary process to go through every once in awhile.

This is the final week to see the 5th Annual Clay & Glass exhibit at the Healdsburg Center for the Arts. The exhibit closes with a final afternoon tea on Sunday July 17th from 2 – 4 at the gallery.

I have two installations from my Bone Series included in this exhibition alongside 12 other talented artists all working in clay or glass. It is a beautiful exhibition, I hope to see you there!

Join me:
Healdsburg Center for the Arts
130 Plaza St., Healdsburg, CA
July 17th 2 – 4