just what's happening in the studio?

well --- a lot!

the commission piece is finished

I will be delivering it to my customer next Saturday

it's pretty exciting to have this finished so I can concentrate on other projects

and this piece is finished

I have entered it in a local show, but have not yet heard if it has been accepted

because I've enjoyed doing these figures in landscapes, I'm working on creating the pattern to do this piece as the next one in that series

and this piece is finished

I have not entered this one in any thing yet -- I think it is a good candidate for Sacred Threads, and the entry for that is in the fall

this one has some unique features -- it is the first one of it's kind that I've done, and I was not sure if I make it look "real" enough -- not like a cartoon -- I'm pleased with the result -- and it's extra special because the shirt is actually made of a piece of his uniform

I was so pleased with this that I've decided to do a similar piece of my mother in law as a young woman -- as they say -- "watch this space"

this piece is being quilted!

this picture is the "thread audition" that resulted in my having a gallon ice cream bucket 2/3 full of spools of thread to be used in this process

this piece is moving right along too

the background for the barn is almost complete, then I need to create the tree

this will be ready for quilting before too long

sometimes what is happening in the larger world impacts what happens in my studio

in the last two weeks the ongoing horror on our southern border has seeped into the sanctuary of the art space and has resulted in this piece

it is 8 inches high and 16 inches wide and has been donated to a local artist that is working on a project that focuses on the building of the wall (if you are interested in seeing more about her project you can google Lea McComas and see more)

there is a call for entries from SAQA that is titled "Forced to Flee", that until a few days ago I had no ideas for anything that would be suitable

making the brick for the wall lead me to an idea for that call, so I'm working on that piece too

my garden is doing well too

so far all of the heavy hail storms have gone around us so we are already eating zucchini and green onions and we have tomatoes that a ripening

Mr Benson tells me he's having to work really hard

his duties supervising in the studio and chasing birds and bunnies out of the garden are keeping him busy!

A long overdue update

it's been so long, I hardly know where to begin

usually I bury the lead, but this seems like the time to begin with the hardest news

shortly after my last blog post, I took the DH to the doctor so he could discuss with her some issues he was having

frankly, I was thinking we were going to be told he was starting into some sort of memory issues, but it turns out he was not getting enough oxygen, so he is now using oxygen all the time

this is the concentrator that he is tethered to when we are at home, and there are two small canisters that can be filled from it that provide him with oxygen when we are out of the house (these last about 2 1/2 hours each)

while his doctor and his insurance would have been happy to allow him to have a small portable oxygen concentrator that would have allowed us the freedom to travel further, it does not properly activate for him when he breathes in, so it is not an option

meantime, he's been through a series of tests to examine the possibility that there is an underlying, treatable condition that would explain the scarring in his lungs that is causing the symptoms, only to discover that it appears to be idiopathic interstitial lung disease

it may be because he had bulbar polio when he was 12, it may be aggravated by living in a home as a child that was heated with coal and had parents that smoked, it may be added to by  the environment he worked in that involved extremely toxic chemicals -- it may be all of those things, they just don't know

the good news in this is that while many folks diagnosed with this have some quickly progressing issue, he seems to be much more stable -- his scarring has progressed very slowly over the four years that elapsed between the CT scans

because there is no established cause, there is also no real treatment -- he will continue to be on oxygen and his condition will be monitored

we're trying to adjust to this new "wrinkle" in things