Here I sit in front of an illuminated computer screen thinking back to May 20th, 1992 when I first opened my shop to the public. I have yet to do a grand opening. I began a new life that day. One where I answered my heart's call, stopped doing street fairs and came in from the cold and began a working studio/ gallery/ shop. What a momentous and scary decision to have made but one that I have never looked back upon with regret.

I have truly enjoyed nearly every moment in my shop. The first space was in a crumbling ( still crumbling ) downtown building with great merchandise up front in a gift shop that had been established for some time - Great Expectations. I occupied the back left hand corner.There was a window,  a curtain across the doorway, my old dining room table, a chair and whatever display pieces I conjured up, my husband built or Gary ( the shop owner from the front of this big space ) gave me. I was so enchanted to be installed as a legitimate business woman.

My wise customers led me into the direction they wanted my shop to go. They suggested what to sell, how they liked to be sold to, what kind of relationships we would form. They were and are the wisdom behind everything. Those first years in my small 12 x 12 space were heady. Inspiring. Busy. Creative.

I learned so much from Gary & Jack, the owners of the business at the front of the building. They took a chance on renting me the back room. I think they were a little shocked when they figured out what I was selling. I explained to them I would be selling " stuff that I made. " I had such fun working with them and Jerry, their employee. We became fast friends. My mentors were fun. Interesting and that Gary? A great teller of jokes and prankster.

I had a window that let in afternoon sun and seeing the tiny, glittery motes float in the sunbeams, made me feel that magic lived in that space and lived in me. Faith in the world  became my companion.

Michael, just ten years old then, would come to me after school and color on the white paper bags I would give out to customers. He grew up and I learned to let go, a teeny bit then and let him walk to the shop from school and even to go to the office supply downtown where he would carefully try out and buy his pencils and colored pens.

I met my husband Phil there and fell in love. I planned my life there and my wedding and my romance within those four brick walls. To this very day, twenty five years later, I sigh and smile back at the memories and still can not believe I made that leap of faith in myself and my work.

Here's to another twenty five years. May I be blessed and lucky to still be in love with my work, my family and my customers. It has been a hell of a sweet ride!

Stormy spring afternoon when friends visited and we had an awesome outing! Lunch, shopping, coffee, conversation. This girl needs more of that!

Exhausted these days. Pulled in a thousand different directions as I search for my footing on this spinning globe we call life. Remember, those of us at a certain age, the old Calgon take me away commercials? I get it now. I could use a little take me away time. Freedom from the demands that a business or three make, freedom from household duties, civic responsibilities, all of it. I am not whining. I am not bemoaning my life or what I have made of it. I love what I do. I just feel like I need a quiet afternoon at the movies, or a cup of tea in a quiet far away place with sun and digging birds and couples walking arm in arm. I will find it on the interior side of my soul and there seek refuge in my artwork. A safety net exists there that makes me dream and live in my own little world.

Just look at this sweet child! Almost twenty one now and I miss the little boy he was.

Maia and me. One so young and beautiful and one getting so old and gray.
Generations of women. I see it now in my own life with my own granddaughter.

David's yard with the little doe hidden under the side yard tree.

A GIFT FROM MY PERSONAL Easter Bunny.

So this being a semi sunny Easter Sunday, I decided to visit one of my oldest friends here in PT, David North. We have been friends for decades, way before we ever thought about being the old people we are now. We were wild young adults, full of artistic inspiration and dreams and energy. We had our own language, our own ways, our own fun. Even today, we still had the tiniest touch of wildness about us, laying about like an ember waiting to erupt. Oh, he would be laughing if he were to read this! Anyhow, he declared himself Doctor Dave and said my knee would heal, to use it and then he gifted us with six colored hardboiled Easter eggs; asking me which colors I wanted. Pink, I said. We brought him a ham hock for his split pea soup. How we have become funny and sedate these last few years! Still there is love there. Humor. Friendship. How does the North wind blow? Only we know, David. Only we know.

I had a couple of days away! I spent them with three friends just an hour from home and we played, created, sang, ate in restaurants, shopped and did a wee bit of cooking and even had a little party! How wonderful is that? Time away from the shops, home and responsibilities that keep me from making things. Amazingly refreshing. As soon as my phone comes back to me from its wandering; I will even post pictures. Until then I will sign off as a happy woman wishing next year to make this time with friends l sat even longer!

Sometimes I wonder when I disappeared. Gone from advertisements, gone from beauty, gone from children. Am I irrelevant, an archaic version of my long ago youth? Do the dreams I have now matter as much as the dreams that followed me through my school years? As I approach my sunetting years, I want to feel the explosion of creativity in me. I want to still have the  inability to contain the excitement a new painting or technique brings. I want to vanish forever the doubt, low self worth, that my journey began with as I wandered into my adult years. Moonlight becomes me. Dreams bare me. Experience is me. Do not turn away but look into the direction I am heading now. No longer a wanderer.