Ah. It's absolutely beautiful today and I have the day off. My studio is cleaner, my head is clearer, there is food in the refrigerator. This post will be short because shortly this writer will shift back into her painter self.
The other day actually I did a short career talk at a school of the arts (think FAME) and tried to explain how I have two interwoven lives: a life as a artist and a life working in the non-prof arts field helping to grow and support other artists. I told the teens how I personally saw the two roles as working together, even if some weeks I was more a manager and some weeks I was more an artist. I wonder if I would be much good at one without the corrective of the other...

A hand shot up. "So, uh, how much do they pay you to be an artist?"

It's tough. That moment when you realize that no-one will pay you to be an artist. But then, the kids kept listening and I think some of them got it. The work is it's own reward. If you have to make it, you make it. The same old, same old: nothing worth doing is easy. I returned to my busy schedule and desk piled high with a smile and a sense I'd helped in some small way.

And this weekend, I saw some contemporary prints. Both the Handprint Workshop ( the view from here ) and ULAE are all over Rochester, which is itself home to a print club. I missed the talk but did manage to get a good healthy does of Renee Stout and Barton Lidice Benesand even a little Terry Winters (not this stuff , but one big red wonderful print).

OK, I'm off to muck up that perfectly clean studio. I'm back to work and my attempts to center tomorrow but today I get to be an artist and nobody has to pay me nothing for that.

take good care,

Rachael