Playing with water splashed on my mirror and a camera flash at my cottage in 2002.

I have been fiercely sequestered in my studio, head buried in piles of paper, photographs, journals and pencils.  I think I am about to finish one leg of my projects but then come up with another idea, and soon another hour has passed by in an instant.  I feel like I have been existing in this world just beneath the surface of the atmosphere that is the day to day – not a lot of social contact during the day, not a lot of my usual checking in with people via email, telephone, etc.  I sent an email to my best friend last week with the subject header "Lousy Friend Alert" to let her know why I had been lame in the department of returning phone calls.  As always, she has been totally understanding and supportive.  In fact, everyone has.

I have found that people, in general, are happy to give me, as an artist, the time and space I need to create.  When I was in Buenos Aires last fall, I was traveling with a group of 23.  As is my usual habit when I travel, I was passionately devoted to my journal writing during the trip, sometimes writing and sketching as we were walking from here to there.  Once word got around I was an artist, everyone seemed almost eager to give me privacy to write down my thoughts.  I could sit square in the middle of a group, lost in my own little world, and everyone was completely at ease with my seeming anti-social tendencies.  I think everyone felt that by letting it be OK for me to disappear from the group mentally, they were somehow contributing to my creative process, which was actually true.  The phenomenon of all these people wanting me to curl up into my journal right in the middle of breakfast was something I found quite fascinating, and it was an experience I also had in Cuba with my fellow travelers on that trip.   The experience of being granted what I needed to focus on my creative energy was something that has stayed with me and shaped my ability to ask for what I need at times like this. 

It is an incredible blessing to have people around me who are not only willing, but downright thrilled to open up whatever space they can to enable me to dive into my creative pursuits.  I have not been as out and about as I usually am, but it is because I am working hard to create something that I hope will enable me to be out and about more powerfully than ever…not powerfully in the sense of wanting control over anyone, but powerfully in the sense of wanting to inspire, uplift and open spaces for other readers to discover their own creative resevoirs.  I am digging deep and hoping to hit a geyser, so I can share my work in a way that allows me to meet more of you face to face, and to look you in the eye and say, quite simply, thank you.