From Ulster County to Kings County

From 1984 till 1991 I lived in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn. I used to walk to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, my path taking me across the bridge over the Gowanus Canal. Now, my odd, bricolage paper-dolls and I are going back to my old stomping-grounds. I am one of twelve artists from Ulster County to participate in a show at the Brooklyn Artists Gym, opening May 14th and running for 2 weeks. 
I was utterly stunned when I was asked to part of this group- in the company of some of the best artists in the area, people whose work I have come to admire and their friendship to cherish.

One of my works chosen for the exhibit: "Greenwoman"

Blindsided

I know I have no control over my emotions but sometimes I am just blindsided by them. For a weekend at the beginning of March and now this weekend, I am taking part in a professional development workshop run by NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts.) It is for visual artists who need a jumpstart in their careers- as I certainly do. Today's program is over and I am here just feeling like I want to cry. Nothing happened today that was emotionally fraught- as far as I can recall. We considered web sites and social networking- topics I deal with often as a web-designer and networker for my various projects. Yet...

Maybe it is just the immensity of the vision/project before me: to be able to once again live in my own house with room to work, dark skies at night, quiet except for natural sounds, land for gardening, time to be an artist. Oh and be able to sustain it. How am I ever going to achieve that? I know that the lesson from the loss of my home/studio/garden is that it takes more than wishful thinking- or delusions- to have that life but I just see this incredibly long road ahead of me and I am bone-weary already after only 3 years. Today I saw how much more I should be doing.

All I can do is just keep putting one foot in front of the other.