This Just In

Tomorrow night is the last regular season home game for Whit. As such, it is Senior Night. We just found out that the coach is starting all seniors tomorrow night, I guess kinda as a symbolic thing. I'll tell you what it symbolizes to me - a very upset daughter. Whit has started every match of the season and she is the team's leading scorer. And she is crying over this. She is taking it, however it is intended, like a punishment. She will get into the match, we assume, at some point. Whit has decided to not let her butt touch the actual bench tomorrow night, to be up and ready, like a good soldier, whenever the coach may put her in. They can take her out, but they cannot bench her.

Her little soul needs your prayers for strength and grace in the face of disappointment.

I am now officially a member of Croc Nation. When I saw these and found out you could change the bow, I gave in and finally bought a pair. Whit has the same, but her bows are currently red, white and blue stars. Her high school team is the Stars and the school colors are red, white and blue.

Jim Croft at Penland

www.penland.org

I haven't been there since 2004 and I didn't realize I wanted to go back until I saw this picture of The Master - Jim Croft - in their "Photos of the Week Gallery". Scoot on over there and check it out. The table beyond Jim's right arm is where I worked in the Book Studio.

Weekly Update from the Insanity Ranch

or wherever it is that I am living this month. I hate that I didn't blog last week about 9-11. I can't believe it's been 6 years. After it happened, it didn't seem like life could ever feel right again. I thought three things:

1. How in the world did this happen?

2. What's next?

3. What kind of world are my girls growing up in?

One night, following 9-11, JR and I were watching the news and something came on about the possibility of terrorists driving truck bombs into crowded buildings, like courthouses and shopping malls. That was some kind of tipping point for me, like it was SO outrageous and unthinkable -how could we live and be happy in such a frightening world? But, because I am a mommy who must set a good example for her girls, I just kept swimming, through all the doubts and fears and worries.

Somehow - by the grace of God - I have managed to not only survive, but thrive in the last six years. My entire "public" art career has been after 9-11. I didn't even make my first book until 2002! I've been in a kinda big juried show, been published a few times and I'm writin' half a book. The girls were in second and third grades on 9-11 - so little and so confused by seeing their beloved teachers crying in the halls and what was on tv. Whitley's initials are WTC, so every time she saw that on tv or in the paper, she was drawn to it. You try to reassure your kids, but what can you tell them for sure? That you love them and you will do your best to keep them safe. When they are little, that's enough.

Those are our kittens, Winnie and Tuck.

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor

Daily Art!!! Remember Daily Art? My old friend, Daily Art? It's why I started this little blog in the first place. It was 2006 and I had this cockamamie idea to make a paper doll everyday for a whole year. It seems that I didn't learn my lesson in the 2004 Make a Book Every Day Challenge OR in the 2005 Add to My Art Journal Every Day Challenge. Well, 2007 is 2/3 over and I am still making art every day. Here are the pages I created last week, adding a layer or element to the collage every day. The words are just what is on my mind right now. My hands and my head and my heart are so full lately, with the girls, The Book, school and Other Personal Matters that I have a hard time sorting out and making priorities. It's ALL important.

I guess I'm still making progress on The Book. I'd better be, anyway, deadlines being what they are and all. I have let my to do list go for a couple of days, so making an updated to do list is job one tomorrow. I LOVE marking stuff off a list. There is control and then there is the illusion of control. At this point I will settle for the latter. Whatever. Waah-waah-waah said the semi-philosophical arty-blogger lady.

Let's talk about something fun - MY GIRLS. Whit has a rough patch in soccer. Not with her play or playing time or effort, but with some team mates and stuff. Whit hates to lose. She takes it personally. She feels it. She comes off the pitch with the tears streaming and her nose running and just miserable! Her high school team has never had a winning record in it's ten-year history. The upper classmen think it's odd, to say the least, that the baby of the team is the one taking the losses so hard. One of the other parents told me not to worry, she'd get used to losing before too long. NEVER, says the mother. She will never get used to it and her mates should be happy about that. Anyhoo, Whit scored on a rocket from 25yards out AND put a corner kick right at Jennifer's feet for an assist on another goal. Stars win, 3-1. Their first conference win in 2years. So Whit is down off the ledge for a couple of days.

And then there's Courtney. She's still in middle school, so she runs cross country for her school team and club soccer. She is on a rec team and an all-star team of sorts. She and Whit played on the same team last spring season and, for some reason, the club decided to keep those teams for this fall. We lost three girls to high school, but added on two boys, one of whom looks my JR in the eye. JR is 6'1". Courtney has taken over her sister's spot as leader, demon in the midfield and taker of corner kicks. She put on a clinic yesterday with her corners. Getting ready to strike in the photo above. She played on the same side as the most feared defender in the league - a huge

boy who sometimes plays rough to make stops. He broke some one's shin guard last season, from sheer force. Courtney was afraid to go up against him. She's already knocked out one tooth - YES, we got it fixed - but we have a strict One Chiclet Per Child rule in this household. She was scared, but she did it anyway and she chewed him up! I used to tell Courtney she was the next Whitley, but after the way she played yesterday, I told her I was wrong. She isn't the next Whitley. She's the first Courtney.

On the NFL on this opening day - I think Michael Vick should never play again. My Colts get no respect. What else does Peyt have to prove? I will never like Eli Manning. He said unkind things about My Tiki. Tik - I forgive you for leaving Fox and going to NBC. Brady - Sorry - I thought I could like you and the Browns, but it ain't happnin. Looks aren't everything. What in the world kinda mess did you leave up there in South Bend? WHY oh WHY is everybody picking the stupid Patriots and that Brady kid to go to the Superbowl? On my scorecard, Tommy boy has a few karmic matters to sort out before worrying about what he's doin after the holidays.

I got tagged

by Cheryl to list 6 of my quirks. Here goes:

1. I don't belive in erasing. I'm not saying I don't make mistakes. I draw or write right over them. Erasing is deception. Erasers let you pretend like you never make mistakes.

2. I avoid lined paper like the plague. Lines are for cowards.

3. Hugging makes me uncomfortable.

4. I mentally add up the contents of my shopping cart EVERY time I buy groceries. I usually come within a buck of correct.

5. I do not subscribe to magazines I always buy, crossing county lines to do so. This makes NO sense. I always buy them. I have to travel to another town to buy them. It would be SO much cheaper and easier to just subscribe. I can't do it. It's a problem and I know it.

6. I obsess over the tiniest little exchanges between myself and other people. I go over and over what he or she said and what I said and try to figure out if I could have been misunderstood or if I didn't understand them.

This is Courtney running at her cross country meet Tuesday. She won. Came in second tonight.

Recently Acquired

I don't think I showed you this ring after I bought it in Santa Fe on my Hummingbird trip. I bought in on the Plaza, directly from the dude who made it. In the thousands of pieces of jewelry I looked at, this green stone called out to me. I like the nonspecific shape and the color. I bought the earrings yesterday at the Fourth Street Festival of the Arts in Bloomington. Lots of "mixed media" artists and, as usual, TONS of pottery or ceramics or whatever the correct term is for that stuff that breaks easily. There were also several jewelers/metalsmiths. I bought these earrings from BJ Watson. They are steel. I saw them in the case and I knew I wanted them. They are my little gift to myself to remember this crazy time of book-writing, art-making and kid-raising. They are also very art-teachery. They remind me of Paul Klee.

In July of 2005, I took that jewelry making class from Thomas Mann at Arrowmont. He talked a lot about how hard it is to make it making art, about how hard he has had to work to build his business in New Orleans and gave us tons of practical advice. In August, 2005, Katrina hit New Orleans and we all know how much damage that did. Thomas Mann's studio and gallery sustained some damage, but was, for the most part, okay. But the rest of the city was so wrecked that he took a pretty good hit anyway. How can you have a business without electricity? How can you have a retail establishment and gallery without customers? I know he wasn't alone. Many other artists in New Orleans suffered even greater losses. When disaster strikes, saving life and limb is, of course, the most important thing. Then resources turn to food, shelter, clothing, water and other utilities. Then, the streets and buildings and homes. Helping artists and craftspoeple rebuild galleries, bodies of work - their lives is pretty far down the list. I cannot, and do not wish to, imagine the heartbreak of losing a lifetime of work and perhaps the tools and space needed to make it. So I try to do my part, at the very least in spirit.

okay...I'm stepping down from the soapbox now