Oh, hi

Really, is there much to say?

I've neglected this blog for almost three months. Three months! That's like...three months!

I'm in the home stretch of my grad program. I shall soon have a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology. I will have probably two and a half to three years of internship after I graduate to accumulate the 3,000 hours required to sit for the licensing exam. It's going to be a while.

I Can Dream, Original Finger Painting

And it's all worth it! I do miss the painting and sharing, though. There have been times where I've wanted to let this blog and even the difficult process of creating interesting paintings die a quiet death under the deck, but I keep hearing the whimpering so I've got to do something (well, outside of the private commissions I don't necessarily show on my blog or gallery).

I used to think that "passion" was monomaniacal--that is, it was focused on the One True Thing and if you had more than one passion, you couldn't be as focused as you needed to be for a successful life.

Okay, we can stop laughing now.

Icarus, Original Finger Painting

There are a lot of myths out there, and I don't mean that in a good, Joseph Campbell sort of way. I mean in a "where the hell did you get that idea?!" kind of way. The myths that keep us feeling less than, confused, ashamed, and not in the loop when it comes to something we're experts on: our own lives.

I'm passionate about quite a few things, and I keep pursuing them in my own way (I love wisdom but I'm not going back to school for a degree in philosophy--or art, for that matter) and they make my life, and the lives of others, interesting.

I doubt I have Oprah's drive for stardom or Bill Gates's desire for control (alt and delete), but what I have at the end of the day is a pretty neat life. It's not perfect, and it gets me down at times, but overall, I enjoy being here.

Thar He Blows, Original Finger Painting

Anyway, I also wanted to share that on July 4, 2010, I donated the three Original Finger Paintings you see in this post to the Santa Cruz AIDS Project auction to help with their fundraiser.

I'm thrilled that my art--that something beautiful--can be used to create change and support others. If you'd like to see larger images of these Original Finger Paintings, please visit the Collected section of my gallery.

The fundraiser itself was a lot of fun and it was rewarding getting to talk to the people who won the Original Finger Paintings. I don't mind the gushing!

That's enough news for now. Sorry for the, you know, three months of silence. I'm not completely back, but you reader(s) are in my thoughts--which is in no way conflated with that under deck whimpering!

Invite Beauty,

I.