Why the Hiatus?

WOW… have I really not updated since 2017? I guess I took an unintended hiatus. Here’s why.

It was a rough school year. The kids seem to get harder and harder every year in our urban, high poverty, high trauma school. Plus on top of having rough kids this year…

I had to be packing, purging and prepping to move into a little, regular classroom for our school remodel. I actually started purging back in January 2017… with over 150 cupboards and drawers, plus 2 large storage closets.. I had a lot of stuff to examine. It was a good process to really see what supplies I had and what I really needed. The kiln will be in deep storage for a year plus. Lots of other media will be on hold due to lack of sinks and storage. Since I love color coding, all my packing was color coded too. Hopefully all the extra time I spent packing and labeling will pay off in the unloading and set up process in September.

PLUS I finally got back into doing my OWN ART at home. After reading “The Artist’s Way” over winter break I got back into the studio making art. I made some new work and entered some art shows. This is a quilt called “No More Empty Desks.” It chronicles the statistics of school shootings since 1998. It was part of the Math + Art Show at the Schack Art Center in my hometown.

On top of getting my creative life realigned, I continued working on my physical health. Working out consistently for pretty much the first time in my adult life meant that I wasn’t staying at school for hours and hours after the end of day. Eating healthy and making some lifestyle changes have allowed me to lose over 50 pounds in the past year. It also meant that I created a new level of balance between my work and home life.

Of course, in addition to school, health and art it was a very busy year with the Washington Art Education Association. We hosted the national convention (NAEA) in our home city, Seattle. It was a blast and a lot of work. My state co-presidency will wrap up this October, just in time for me to transition into a new co-presidency for the NAEA Choice-Art Special Interest Group.

All that to say, I haven’t posted much because my priorities changed a bit this year. BUT, I have some exciting new things happening soon so I will return to some posts about school, art, TAB, writing, and how to make kids into awesome little artists while also nurturing my inner little artist. It is going to be a fun summer!