As I type this post, I am gazing out over the beautiful Alps from my living room in rural Bavaria, and I am a few days away from the first of two weddings (Germany requires a civil wedding, but we also want a church wedding) to the incredibly cute guy in the second photo, Florian. In the past year, I have liquidated my shop in Downtown Huntsville (my public studio for over 4.5 years), helped my Mom move into a great house where I set up a home studio to use whenever I am in Huntsville, did a wonderful art show to benefit the coloring book project that I am working on with the Huntsville Historic Foundation (see the third photo for the first sketches), and flew to Germany twice-- I arrived for the second time just under two weeks ago. This fall, I am sketching up a storm for the afore-mentioned coloring book and working on some seven commissions. I suspect that I will probably be returning to Huntsville for a month or two at the end of the year, doing art and an event or two there, then flying back to Germany to figure out what comes next. . . until the reception Florian and I have planned for May and the debut at Harrison Brothers Hardware of my coloring book. It is a busy time of transition, constant travel, celebrations, lots of work, and many changes in the way I run my business and nudges to step out of my comfort zone. I will be living in two worlds for years to come, if not always from here on out. I have lots of ideas and lots of questions. It is easy to get carried away in bouts of both brainstorming, then worrying, and then more brainstorming.
With all that thinking comes a few realizations, a few wise words that keep me grounded, and I would like to share them. A life-long vocation like being an artist, I see, is never completely without change, nor is it as linear as we may assume. I'm fairly certain that any life-long commitment, including the marriage I am about to go into, is probably exactly the same. Steps forward often come with pushes backward or unexpected compromises, setbacks worse than we had feared and opportunities better than we had ever hoped for, and it is sometimes not even clear which is which until years later. No matter how good or promising the change sounds,there is a good chance that the mind will resist it and try to sabotage it out of fear, laziness, or both. We must seek to understand what the fear is trying to teach us and not give into the laziness. Regardless, our reactions and our decisions matter more than the circumstances themselves and can make or break most situations. Our souls go through seasons, of rampant growth, of reflection, of rest, of resurgence-- and feeling successful often has more to do with understanding the purpose and beauty of each season than fighting to remain in a perpetual state of summer. We gather our thoughts like a harvest and plan out which seeds to sow next. As we enter fall, that will be something I reflect on again and again.
Thank you, friends, for all your support and kind words (there are many of you to thank for the active roles you took in ensuring that the many challenges and adventures of the past year would go smoothly, and I hope you all know who you are). I am happy to say that my Huntsville fans can currently purchase my originals and prints at Harrison Brothers Hardware and that everybody in and outside of Huntsville is welcome to send inquiries to me via FB, instagram, or Email. I will try to keep everyone updated on the adventures ahead on social media and on this blog, but if you pre-emptively want to suggest a topic or two for future blog posts, please feel free-- whether it is aspects of life in Germany, life in Alabama, running an art business, or the ins and outs of what I am working on now. This blog has a tendency to go dormant for long periods, but I have never given up on the hope that one day I will take up the habit of writing regularly, and your suggestions would be helpful indeed.
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