There's something about a newly organized, clean studio space that just makes me want to create! (and inevitably make a mess again!) I was thumbing through some old unfinished drawings and I happened upon this beautiful sketch I made, apparently in 2014, of a Masai woman with a basket on her head. For awhile I was very interested in these striking African portraits of different native groups throughout Africa. Almost on impulse, I decided to carve around the drawing with an Xacto and mount it to a canvas using scraps of 1970's-era National Geographics for the background colors. I may not know where this piece is going, but it sure is fun to mess around!

Slowly my basement is starting to lose old junky items and is actually looking like a somewhat usable space! As an artist and art teacher, hoarding for sure is in my blood and I have countless boxes and drawers of found ephemera and started projects that I know one day I will eventually get back to :/  I have gotten better about being ruthless with my disposal - recently I burned an entire dresser that had broken drawers and was a beast to move. I also had these flat file metal drawers that I know are usually stupid expensive to buy new so I held onto these old beat up ones that were donated to me by a friend. I knew they needed a lot of TLC. Fortunately my husband loves diving into a new project, so he spray-painted them, spruced them up and put them on a rolling workbench unit with a nice thick counter-top. It's coming along great, hopefully I can keep my "collecting" in check!