Not to start a story in the middle but, here I go.  I have been posting for many years on blogger on my Elizabethland blog but I tried to edit the style of the page and all of my writing disappeared.  And before that many of my pictures also disappeared.  This was pretty devastating, but I'm over it now and ready to start again. Primarily because I am shifting the focus of my blog a bit.  I plan to continue writing about fiber arts but I'm moving away from bellydancing as such a primary focus and definitely moving towards art.

On the surface my work has been concentrated towards completing a degree, and this is a great thing for me.  I had the opportunity to really study art and paint a lot.  I also had to do a lot of classes that didn't seem to be related with making art, like Algebra, Physical Geography, and Political Science.  Sometimes I felt like those classes were wasting my time, oddly enough I think they were not because they exposed me to things I wouldn't normally think about (except politics which I think about too much).  I was introduced to some new information and ideas and was able to create connections to my art.  Getting a degree also helped me gain a feeling of confidence and completion.  Ultimately though the deep work I'm interested in is exploring parts of myself in connection to the world that I can manifest in the physical form of art objects.

As a result of my art education I've discovered that it is vital to look past what artists show us on a canvas and to see what it is they have to actually say about their work.  We live in a culture where we are inundated with visual input, it's almost impossible to assimilate it all by just looking at it.  Also, living in this world where people are all staring at their cell phones constantly (myself included sometimes), I feel like we've moved away from really seeing what is around us.  And it's important to take the time to listen to what artist's of all kinds have to say, it's important to engage in conversation.  Distraction has just become to easy.

I guess this blog is about "making" but it's also about making a new self.  So yes I want to talk about art.  Painting, fiber making, knitting, politics, and just life.  Hopefully I'll flush out what I mean by being here if I just keep writing on a regular basis.

Thank you for reading.