Hello vibrant beings,

I have been laid up all week with a sickness. Nothing too bad but bad enough to keep me indoors with a thickness in my head and surrounded my empty tissue boxes. I usually like to work on something even if I am sick but the energy just wasn’t there. It is hard to stay put, especially in my mind, when it’s for my own good.

That impetus, to keep busy despite myself, comes from outside myself. The urgency of the world news instigates thoughts that demand, ‘do more’, and ‘fix all the things.’ We are in that place now.

I had ideas ping ponging around my head that I could do no action for. I had to simply trust that the action from me was to wait to heal. Waiting is a challenge.

I am feeling more energetic now and started sifting through old journals to find an image prompt for the newsletter. When I write these I start with the image and then work on the “Latest reads..etc” and go from there.

In my 20’s I kept journals to stay sane, and it mostly worked. I am still here. At the time I was in denial that I was an artist. I used to sketch secretly between my written musings in my journals. Usually my subjects were interiors of physical spaces and dreams. I was cautious and mostly kept these images to myself.

The photo above is a sketch I did when I first moved to NY. I can feel what it was like to be me when I drew this and my heart is battered but much more open now. I have since used this sketch as a transfer in an encaustic painting that now lives in a friend and patron’s home.

The time between the secret drawing and the painting is decades. That is a trip. I could not have fathomed the outcome when I drew it. I had to be patient and secure in myself to share myself.

I had to wait to have the energy to take action. Some lessons are cyclical and healing comes in different forms.

Be kind to yourself and when you are ready, take action.

We are all in this together.

Zoe

Latest Read:  The Overstory by Richard Powers. Buy at your local bookstore or even better, check it out from your local library! I have read this three times, once as an audio book.

Art Date: This is the last week for Probably A Bad Idea a solo show by Dylan Clendenin at Moth Belly Gallery in SF. I am hoping to catch it. Let me know if you go!

Inspiration: Singing resistance. A mass movement of singers using song as an antidote for fear. I haven’t joined yet but looking into it. Find your local chapter if this is your jam.

Shout Out: To the mothers.