Adrift. . .

I'm feeling a little lost lately. Spiritually, artistically, geographically. I was productive this week in that I got a lot of paperwork done, made two big trips to the post office, took down my show and accomplished a lot in the little time I did spend in the studio. But I did manage to screw up the third enamel in a row I'm making for a brooch. And I'm not nearly finished with all the paperwork/mailing/thank you notes I need to do. Also, I'm putting off something I really need to do, because I don't want to do it, because I'm afraid. I'm more afraid that it will work out, than I am of it not working out. Which is the far more likely scenario.

Most of my friends are at SNAG this weekend. Or Penland. Or abroad. I'm desparately missing Italy these days, but I'm really ready to go anywhere. I've never been so ready to leave a place, yet so sad about how much I'll miss it. I love North Carolina, but Greenville is no longer a good place for me to be, and hasn't been for some time. It'll be good to get away for a while, I'm just afraid I won't make it back.

But I'm headed to Arrowmont shortly. I finally got my classes a few weeks ago and after some mixed feelings (What the heck am I going to do in a plastics class? Monotypes, ok, guess I have to take my printmaking stuff. YES!!! The Enameled Image with Jessica Caulderwood!!! Awesome!) I decided that I'm ready for it all. Ready to suck up what ever experience I can. I've even got some ideas, which I'll blog about later.

I did a travel journal/sketchbook in Italy last summer that I'm really proud of. And I realized that there's no reason why I can't do a similar thing this summer at Arrowmont. It won't be exactly the same, but why not approach it with that kind of single mindedness of capturing EVERYTHING?

I never do well in these "in between times". I'm better if I have a focus and a goal and a routine. But I think my only goal for today may be to go enjoy the Aurora Fossil Festival.

Happy weekend, where ever you are.

Fossil Fun

So on Monday, I was surprised with a trip to the Aroura Fossil Museum. It's a small (but free!) museum that has a great selection of fossil shark teeth, whale bones and other fantastic things found out at the Aurora Phosphate Mines. They also have a nice collection of arrowheads and other Native American stone tools, as well as some South American artifacts.

But the best part was the big pile of dirt from the mines outside the museum where you could look for fossils. I found some small shark teeth, brachiopods, a porpoise tooth, stingray teeth, and some bits of whale and shark bone. Here's me playing in the dirt.


Sadly, you can't just go the mines a collect fossils. It's a hard hat, steel toed boots type of thing. But if you become a friend of the museum you can go on their bi-annual collecting trips. I'm seriously considering joining!

I'll be using some of my finds in my piece for Lark Book's 500 Found Object Works.