Good Busy

Hello woefully neglected blog! I'm sure you'll understand that I'm once-again over-committed and trying to be brave and cheerful about it all, which isn't that hard when I get mindful and realize how good most of the busy-ness is.
A rundown:
I'm gathering work together for the ArtsIlliana Crossroads Arts Fest, where I'm going to share a booth with weaver John Salamone and my "Art Heals" display for The Maple Center for Integrative Health.

I'm working on pieces for that and for a fiber arts show in October at Gopalan Contemporary Art gallery - that would feature John, Cathie Laska and me.

rootbone series (2010), wool, dyed, tied, wet-felted

I'm chairing the planning committee for this year's Maple Center workshop on loss and art: Creating a Path Through Loss / The Arts as Healing Tools.

Those are the big things - in between I'm still co-hosting monthly poetry readings and will do an extra reading for the Arts Fest.  And I'm teaching a triangle loom class at RiverWools in October. Facilitating Lit Night at ArtReach twice a month. Hoping to have things ready to show at the annual fall arts festival we're inaugurating this year at First UU - Fruitridge Cider Fest.

What else....?  OH, I got the grant! The grant awarded by the Indiana Arts Commission. The Individual Artist Program grant!  I got it.  I'm still having a hard time believing it.    I don't think I wrote about this here, but I spent a good deal of time working on the application late last year and through January.

This grant is pretty cool, an award of up to $2,000 for a project that will further an artist's career - it's very open, the project could be travel for research and inspiration, time off from work to complete a work, money for supplies or equipment. 

At the time, I had just discovered Saori weaving and thought I'd apply to see if I could buy a Saori loom, which I thought was totally out of the question both for $$$ and space reasons.  I thought, though, that if I could get the money, I'd make the space!  In the last 3 weeks, I've gotten almost 30 boxes of books out of here and onto the shelves at BookNation (oh, yes, that's another thing I do, 3 days a week, I'm helping to keep BookNation open and selling a few books.)  So I made the space and then last week, got the great news.

Saori SX60, you will be mine in a matter of weeks:

I feel busy and blessed.
Namaste!