For those of you who have been patient and visited my website hoping to hear what is happening in my little world of enameling I have to confess I have started several lengthy blog posts that were never finished and therefore are languishing unattended somewhere.

This post will be brief and finished. The image I have included is from one of my foggy morning walks before teaching this past Sept. at John C Campbell Folk School in NC.

Since I stopped selling my work at retail crafts shows in 2015 and then put all my energy into the non-profit I started (the Center for Enamel Art), I gave myself very little time to actually  “be” with my work.  The Center has been in hiatus for over 4 years because of my burn out, but my teaching and administrative time at The Crucible has sucked a lot out of me as well. I just turned 79 and realized that time is running out to explore who I am as an enamelist.

I am starting to spend more time in my studio discovering my own work. I spent a lot of time reorganizing my space but then I stopped. I no longer rush to complete my vessels. I allow myself to be in the moment. No cell phone. No computer. No social media, which I’m not very good at anyway. I listen to my radio when I don’t want silence – NPR and baseball! Slowly I began seeing new things in my work.

‘Seeing’ is the key word here. Many of you know that I have had ongoing eye issues since my mid-30’s. This year I decided to have a second corneal transplant in one of my eyes.  The surgery was successful but my vision was not what I had hoped it would be. My doc stepped in and prescribed a very special prosthetic contact lens which I am now wearing in both eyes and, miraculously my vision is almost as good as it was when I was much younger.