For me, art is the only choice as I create everywhere with everything. Give me odds and ends and I make art - always have. Whether it is rebuilding an overhead camper, repairing my mouse eaten wind shield wiper hose, installing my own heater console after removing one from a junk yard, recovering the kitchen cushions with an 100 year old Singer sewing machine that sews in one direction only, painting with fabric paints, rice paper and magazines, designing websites, silver smithing or creating for my students. Given old wood and a wood shop with no supplies for seven weeks I thrived by creating a Pumpkin Chunkin Festival.

Everyone tells me I am fun. I take the old, tossed and make anew. I create inspite circumstance - the power of art. I create because I breathe.

Painting is special for me. It invokes my deepest feelings. All my paintings of these last six months have been catharsis. Wildly creative and powerful. Midlife decent into the the river beneath the river - facing the mirror. Move over Kahil.

I am not ready to paint the land that I love. The Swell. It is the high desert that called out to me over twenty years ago with MYSTERY. Like a salmon returning home I returned to the solitude of silence time and time again. Native Americans say if you listen the Land speaks. I listened.

Years ago I taught Pre K for a short time. I was supposed to teach beginning word recognition etc. There I glimpsed the power of art. It is the power of standing in your feelings, dignity, truth of who you are.

Standing on the shoulders of all the woman that came before me. Perfect in our imperfections. Sisters in Spirit, Woman of Crone. I came full circle.

Desertcrone