It's a jungle out there

Lovely husband hanging my new sign for the road.

     One of the harder things to do when you work for yourself alone (for me, anyway), is maintaing discipline of a work schedule and routine. It's not that I don't love what I do but because I work at my place of living and alone and for myself, it's very easy to get "off track" and get distracted. Not only do others believe that I can just stop working to accommodate their desires, I can easily con myself of the same thing and end up getting way behind on goals and projects with personal errands and other things that can wait until I finish working. I think working in the field of graphic design in New York City for years helps me keep things moving forward. Design is very "deadline" oriented. If I set a deadline for a project, that's step one. Step two is practicing the self-discipline to follow through – that's the much, much harder part.

     Right now the discipline is about maintaining a Wednesday through Saturday, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM schedule in the studio and be ready to deal with any visitors. I don't expect any visitors for a while but first I have to get into a new habit. In my mind, once I hung this sign, I was committed to this schedule. Assuming this goes well, I'll continue this next year for the Spring/Summer season of April through September. Of course, being the semi-solitary person I am, when it's not my work schedule, I reserve the right to be my rude and cranky self. There will be exception weekends when I have events and firings to attend but I will announce that here and on my Facebook page.

Some abstract carvings

     New wood-fired work is on Etsy and at Damselfly Gallery in Midway, KY. Most of the horse items are at Midway. Above are some larger vase forms with cave art and abstract carvings for either electric firing or future wood-firings.

Cave art carvings on larger vases in bisque.

Mammoth!

     Western Kentucky is still in a drought. Where I am, however, has gotten buckets of rain since Mid-July. Suddenly, my stumpy Mammoth sunflower plants have lived up to their name and shot up over the last several weeks. My volunteer gourds below them have also exploded. I'm 5'5" so you be the judge of how big this one is. The heads of these guys are heavy with seeds. Birds will be well fed this winter.

Bursting with seeds!

     I have, however, abandoned my garden to the weeds. Occasionally I go in and find some beans and check to see that the onions are still growing. Even some banana peppers get picked. My frustration with how well things grow here, particularly weedy, viney things means I hope to build a more permanent garden of the raised bed variety to maintain some order out there.

Irvine, Kentucky

     Lastly, kudos to the Olympic participants and the Mars Curiosity rover team. Wow! on both counts.