It’s been awhile since I wrote anything here on the blog. This is mainly because I have been enjoying the amazing summer and fall here in Colorado. I’ve been playing a lot more than working, especially with Paul now retired. We’ve been exploring just what that means to daily life around here. And I’ve been branching out a bit in the art department, after taking a short class on oil painting in August. I think I am ready to do something that is not focused on horses all the time!

Here’s my first painting. It is from this photo that I took in the ancient walled city of Mdina on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean not too far from Sicily. We spent a week there last September. It’s not quite finished; I just need one more session to put in the street lamp and a few other small details.The point wasn’t just to exactly reproduce the photo. In fact I think the photo is amazing and like it better than the painting. But it has been interesting making the painting work as well. I am pleased with how even though everything is more simplified, the essence of the scene is the same.

Paul’s dream has always been live in the mountains and to ski every day. After working so hard for us over the last 30 years I agree he has earned that dream! Next week we close on our purchase of a 2-bedroom ski condo up in Avon, Colorado. Avon is the town at the foot of the Beaver Creek Ski area. We’ll be just a short walk or free town bus ride to the new gondola lift they built to get to the slopes. Right now the plan is to spend most of the winter months living up there. I’ll probably go back to Boulder more than Paul, in order to keep working on china projects and check on the house, etc.

But I am becoming comfortable with the idea that I can retire, too. I haven’t felt very interested in doing much of anything this fall. I hardly ever spend a full day working. The work comes in little bursts of activity. I get all fired up for a day or two, and then can’t get back to what I was working on. Then I get excited about something else. I am all over the place with my work! There are so many things in the studio in various stages of un-finished-ness. I had several days of very good work on the “Roundabout” cob sculpture earlier this month, and now he has sat there in the middle of my studio for weeks. I see him every day out of the corner of my eye and just observe… but not ready to work the clay again yet.

This week I got into china-glazing mode. Fido The Kiln was happy to have some attention at last. I had two pieces promised for people that I will see at a show on Saturday. A firm deadline can be a good motivator! I finished this pretty “Heart of Darkness” and this bay H-R “Amir” yesterday.

Here’s a sneak-peek of another china horse I started glazing yesterday.

This one will be finished within the next two weeks and I will be placing it up for sale on MyAuctionBarn site.

I really do want my main goal to be getting “Roundabout” finished this fall. But what I want and what my muse wants are two very different things it seems! I am discovering that I enjoy my creative life a lot more when I just don’t set ANY goals. It feels great now to just wake up and decide what I will do that day.

This ski-condo is really going to upset things but I am staying open-minded about it. I am going to bring the sculpture and my oil painting supplies with me, so that I will be able to work on SOMEthing when the urge hits me up there. Also, I can cast some china horses in the molds here, bring all the clay pieces in their damp-box, and stick them together while I watch the snow fly.

A morning of new powder and an afternoon painting or sculpting looks like a fine way to spend my days this winter!