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To my shame the moving in stage of moving in was delayed for a while.

While I enjoy my two office rooms, my whistling radiators, my teeny tiny kitchen, the local overly cautious SUV-drivers, the stark winter colors, my eerily quiet neighbors, the relative difference of 65 versus 67 degrees and a thousand other aspects to my new town and apartment, it has not been a smooth transition. My homes have always been built around friends and family. The new connections I have made here along with many long-distance calls have helped, but, obviously, the numbers of connections has changed greatly from what I was familiar with.

It takes a long time to move into a place if you're not sure it's really where you want to be.

In the end, this is the right thing, so during the holidays I spent plenty of time making my apartment into a home rather than just a place where I sleep, eat, doodle and teach fashion students figure drawing.

It's back to taking my thyroid vitamins and making prioritizing lists, starting with the four or five or ten projects I've managed to attempt working on at the same time, some as adjustments to existing pieces and plenty of new works. They always keep me up far longer than I initially expect, too. I also have plenty of pieces that I need to catch up on posting.

"A Lid for Every Pot" was a commission that allowed me the opportunity to get back to using the kitchen as artistic subject matter, much to my own enjoyment.



After four years of art boot camp, I've had time to refamiliarize myself with those bulky things called books. Between the Gil Evgren calendars, the debut of Patrick Rothfuss's epic fantasy and Mo Willems children's books, I spotted an enjoyable little book by author and artist Vivian Swift.



It's the book that every visual artist secretly or not-so secretly wants to publish, combining personal sketches, facts and observations into one place for no other reason than to share everything with the viewers. When Wanderers Cease to Roam is catered to the creator herself, containing paintings and information of nature, life and the change of seasons in a year as an homage to her quiet experiences. I would not choose to draw the subject matter that she has in my own sketchbook but to view the work is a lasting inspiration.