ABOUT


About Go* Exploring:

In 2016 my word of the year was explore.  (Thus, the not-so-pithy title of this blog.)

For 2017, my word revealed itself as STORY.  It's fitting on two levels: 1) because I'm a storyteller, and 2) when you explore, you bring back stories.  It seemed like a logical progression.

In 2018, I did ENCHANT.  Which is kind of perfect for how I tend to approach things.  Everything is enchanting if you look at it closely enough.

2019?  JOY.  I started as "finish", but that's just ridiculous for me.  I'm much better at starting than finishing.  And it's more about finding happy than about productivity for me.  With joy, all things are possible.

I've had other blogs before.  Including blogs from the olden days of the internet where we called them online journals and all participated in webrings and uploaded our entries that we hand-coded in HTML via FTP every single day, because we were all exhibitionist-masochists.  Or, y'know, because there wasn't nifty software to do all of this for us.  I wrote scr@wls, Atropine, Blue Bicycle, and Saper Vedere in the old days.  And I had a livejournal.  Because that's what you did back in the ancient internet histories.

These days, I'm just kind of loving the idea of having one digital place to keep all my weird rambling.  A place to keep ideas and projects and writings and art things and lists of things that all make my heart go a little bit faster.

All the things I'm exploring, and the stories I'm telling, as the case may be.

Some may be finished things, some may never get finished.  Or started, even.

All I know is that people who start projects and never finish them are still infinitely cooler than people who never start anything and just sit around wishing they did.

About the artsybits:

First off, you can buy my stuff here.  I'm trying to update more often.

When this blog began, I was primarily working in acrylics.  You'll see a lot of those if you go back in the archives.

These days, it's all about the watercolors, baby.  I started using them for sketching, but now, they're my only love.  They're just juicy.

I like stories.  I write stories, when I'm not sitting around with inky, painty fingers.  So I just let whatever the paint blobs want to be sort of develop themselves and tell me their stories as they do.

When I'm not channeling imaginary stories, I'm keeping dubious numbers of sketchbooks, playing with sewing (of all the unexpected and crazy developments), and drawing all the things.

About me:

I'm in my late-forties, which still astonishes me, since I'm pretty sure my brain stopped getting older in roughly 1989.  Or earlier.  I'm a chronic Starter of Things, and Writer of Stories.  I literally ran away with the circus in 2004 and married him.  I love dogs and rocks and forests.  I make things all the time.

I'm currently living in the most beautiful place on earth and have no plans to leave, unless I decide to get a teardrop trailer and roam the country one of these days.  Which I very well might do.

My shadow side is depression and anxiety, which comes up a lot, even when I don't talk about it.  (In fact, when there are long pauses between entries, the chances are that I've been wrestling with that particular dragon.  It's an ongoing quest, and one that I don't always win.)

The mockingbird's my spirit guide, the snake's my totem.  I'm a watery Cancer with a Scorpio rising.  I'm addicted to fountain pens and ink, and vintage woodcase pencils.  I read a lot.  I'm a member of the Wander Society, enthusiastically so.

In early 2016, I did an exercise for an online class where we had to come up with a personal motto.  Mine is more succinct than I'm usually able to be:

READ, WRITE, ART, WANDER.

What else is there?

(edited to add:  I believe very strongly in the philosophy of promoting what you love instead of bashing what you hate.  Spread the things that make you happy; bashing stuff is a waste of time, and unnecessarily hurtful.  Be a light instead of a snarky idiot.

By that note, you won't find much bashing here.  There may be a little bit of I didn't like this because, but I'm much more likely to not say anything if I don't like something.

Fair warning: I'm super enthusiastic about the things I do like.)