Not just Veteran's Day for me . . .

We buried my mom 13 years ago today. She died very suddenly at age 66. I was 30 and so not ready to be without her. But, life has a way of working in its own way and honestly, the way things turned out, I got much closer to my dad than I might have otherwise and that has been a very precious gift to me. What they say is true, time heals things and lessens pain and sorrow, but I miss my mom.

I am starting a part time job today. I applied for one, kind of on a whim, and got it, not sure that I even really wanted it. It's no great feat - I'm working at Micheal's of all places! If nothing else, a discount will be nice. But, I have to say, it's been a long, long time since I worked for minimum wage. I hear the job and nice pay I left to make art no longer exists thanks to CA's education cuts and I'm just thankful to have a job at all in a state that has the worst unemployment rate in the country. I was sharing somewhere else today that it's just hard to not have a job, regardless of pay rates. I've only not worked 5 years out of the last 29 - I started working when I was 14 and didn't not work until my son was born. I keep thinking he's going to college in less than a year and I can't just play all day everyday. I'm not sure how it will change things art wise . . . we'll see.

I finished one collage sheet and one collage today. Here's what I wrote in flickr about my collage piece . . . "For Nancy Baumiller's Collage Dreams on Paper class . . . Well, I did it. I did what I was afraid to do. I played, no plan, no printing stuff out. I just used scraps AND I finally tried hand lettering. I can't say that I like it, but I like that I finally let go, loosened up, and faced some fears here. Heck, I even scribbled some if you can believe it."

Always


This is an 8 x 10 collage using mostly images from my new collage sheets but also many scrap pieces of paper and a few magazine pictures of trees (altered and recolored). The wings are from Itkupilli.etsy.com, the scalloped border at the top is from designer Sande Krieger, and the hat was made from a piece from Studio Maya at Scrapbookgraphics.com. The fish, all the bodies, face, and many other pieces are from my collage sheets at tumblefishstudio.etsy.com. Lots of ink, pastel, and the main background is acrylic.

Here's the new collage sheet

FrooFroo



I am so honored to be featured on two lovely blogs today. Thank you to Lorraine of Creative Daily for a lovely post. Lorraine was just published in Somerset Studio and has so many different talents. You must hop over and peruse her lovely blog. And, another big thank you to Nikki Smith (again! I mentioned her on yesterday's post). If you didn't stop by after yesterday's post, jump over now and check out not just her blog but all of her gorgeous galleries!