Gung hey fat news day

photo courtesy of the Boston Globe

Happy happy Ox Year to all of us. I love the Rat, really I do, it is my secret animal in Chinese Astrology, but I am so happy to see his tail end right now. Those of you who know {and, presumably} love me – {amour amour :-} also know that, last year, my sweet little chaotic patch of life was fraught with pointy opposites on the spike train axial. Or, in a gentler tone, ups and downs and everything in between. There is an old Chinese curse that says: May you live in interesting times…. and to that I say, Jane!! Stop this crazy thing! I am so ready to loll in the sweet grass with the old Ox now.

But hey (fat choy) – we survived – and even thrived! Mother bumped her head and quit smoking as a result… Ms. P. spent the summer in the hospital but came home with an unclogged drainpipe… The hellish daily parade of muddy booted workmen has dwindled … BD has managed to surf the changes of the merger so far … I still have a few hairs left on my head…and I have had some wonderful things happen too {thanks to the Beautiful Ones in my life (you know who you are.)}

The Good News

I am teaching this year!!! In three places: magical, majestic, and mythical.

Magical
In June I am joining the Beauty Makers at Squam. The prospect of teaching in this beautiful, deeply spiritual place is thrilling enough, but getting to see Poppy in her element makes it far more than ordinary magic. In this perfect world, we will be taking watercolor over to the wild side. Working big, bold and with wild abandon. How’s that for adventure travel?

Majestic
High summer will find me in the high desert, living the life I love, soaking up the sweet sweet company, and teaching watercolor at the majestic ArtUnravelled!! Yes, watercolor again, but here we will be learning how to step gently into paintings, and coming to the other side with beautiful, self reflective works of art. I am on fire for this one!!

Mythical
Mythology is bigger than us, things that happen that are so epic that we burn them into our collective memories where they live on forever. I am so very honored to have been included in the constellation of creative souls that will be teaching at the very first Journalfest in Port Townsend this October. Journalfest is the love project of Tracy and Teesha Moore, who we all know from their groundbreaking art work, and, of course, as the creators of Artfest. This is an amazing event for many reasons, but because it is a labor of love for them, it has a heartbeat that is all encompassing and a spirit that is the stuff of legends.

I will be teaching two workshops, Journaling into Painting (which I wrote about in Cloth Paper Scissors in September) and the Painted Word, a class that I’ve been dreaming about teaching forever, and whose time has finally come. I am walking on clouds. Come walk with me?

So, there it is! The news in an edamame pod…. I’ve missed you all, it’s great to be over the hump.