I'm back...

and being creative again! woo hoo!

I had a bit of a cancer scare. I went for an annual physical, and my doctor found that my thyroid was enlarged, and all the test results kept coming back indeterminate. Given that my mother died of cancer when she was five years older than I am now, there was a lot of anxiety, and a lot of emotion, and not much room for creativity. I realize now, I should have made room for it.

Along the way we also discovered I have an abnormal EKG, so that was a concern. More anxiety. It turns out that it is "abnormal" the way a head of red hair is "abnormal" - meaning just rare, not dangerous. My heart is good to go.

After six weeks of testing, I finally had the thyroid out. The surgery itself was quite easy, and I am now fully recovered. Well, almost fully, there are still some calcium issues, but we are hoping they will resolve on their own.

And the final word is - no cancer. There never was cancer! It was just lumpy and large, and the surgeon took it out simply because it was so lumpy, it would be difficult to track in the future.

No cancer, and significantly in debt due to medical expenses.

In the midst of all this, I also moved my studio, taking the smaller guest bedroom to sleep in, and moving all my creative stuff into the larger bedroom to work in. I had been thinking about moving for a while, but it seemed overwhelming and I wasn't sure I would like it. Someone came to help me, so the overwhelming part was diminished (thank you!), and I like this new art studio very much! There is so much space, and light. I now have different work surfaces available so I am not constantly moving one project aside and putting one set of tools away, in order to work on something else while waiting for the first thing to dry or cure or pickle.

However, I have spent several weeks not able to find anything! My methodology, I'm afraid, is a little bit cluttered. I think it requires clutter, to a certain extent. I'm a bit of a sifter when I am working. I need to see things, rearrange them - bead colors lined up next to each other for example. So I take out 30 tubes of beads and move them around. Then there are 27 tubes of beads lying around, after I have picked the 3 I need and start to work. At least now, I have the space to let them lie around for a while, I don't have to immediately put them away.

Because all the things were moved, I would be looking for one certain thing, and it was in a new place in a new room. It has taken several weeks for me to adjust my thought process about where that one tool that I KNOW IS AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE might be.

I work mostly in the center of the room, and have all my creative inspiration and tools and intriguing STUFF I have collected orbiting around me. I am the sun, and they are my satellites, and sometimes I finish something and it shoots out like a comet into the universe! The air conditioner is in, the cats come in and sit in this one area of sunshine, which luckily is out of my way when I'm working, so I'm not rolling over tails with the chair anymore. I should take a picture of the room, it's wonderful.

I finished my school project, a version of a prayer wheel based on the Tibetan tradition. I am very pleased with it, as a prototype. It will serve as inspiration for something else, eventually. But now I am back working on seeds. The prayer wheel incorporated seeds. Then with sterling silver becoming so ridiculously expensive, I started working in polymer clay. I had signed up to take an enameling class, and was looking forward to working with color this summer, but the teacher bailed and the class was cancelled. I am getting my color fix from the clay instead. Inspired by the watermelons of summer and their seeds, I have made a set of beads, and am working on ways to mount them for earrings. That is today's project, I hope to have them on etsy by this weekend. I need to start creating and selling, to help with these bills.

I want to get back to the wax carving again soon. I need to make a butterfly to commemorate the thyroid experience, and I have a feather idea....

It is SOOOOOOOOOOOO good to be creating again!