Damn, where have I been. It's October and I haven't said a word yet. Forgive me as I forgive myself, dust myself off and stand back up on my soapbox/pedestal/folding ladder that's about to topple over. I've been painting and working and daydreaming and buying new boots and thinking I'm an art star (fart star is more like it) because one of my paintings has been chosen to be on the next edition of some of my favorite chocolate bars. An excuse to eat a lot of chocolate and be in an art show in the People's Republic of Ithaca is a good thing. If you can get to Ithaca for the gallery night in December I'll be there, eating chocolate bars and meeting other artists. I'll tell more soon.

We still don't have a closing date for the house but that doesn't mean I'm not still obsessed. Here's my latest painting of it, perhaps the picture that will someday appear on our moving card.



And then speaking of home. I'm from Glens Falls, New York, a tiny town in the Adirondacks. This week I've been saddened, crazy saddened, to see Lake George in the news not as a beautiful lake (as in this Steiglitz photo) but as the place twenty people died when a boat tipped over. It was sad when that glass ship went down and to see the pictures and the story told by the people in the community I grew up, reminds me again of the value of these small towns. I hate that there was such a loss of life, but the people of Lake George and Bolton Landing and Glens Falls will give comfort to the people of Michigan who can't quite figure out how a pretty day turned so ugly.

Be good, be giving, be kind, be not afraid to go out on the water and see what a beautiful day can bring. I give a little image of gathering clouds, or storms, or whatnot, salvaged from the floor of my old fire damaged studio and reborn and revamped in a new space as a testament and a hope.



Take care,
Rachael