Last night we had a fabulous set of thunder and lightening storms with downpours of much needed rain. I enjoyed every minute of them even staying up later than I had planned to watch the light show out my bedroom window. Unfortunately, the aftermath of that natural awesomeness is a dreary, bleary, blechy day today. It feels like a Monday (the dreaded "M" day again!!!) To add to insult to injury I am once again dealing with hives all over my face. I find myself wondering if my skin has decided that it is allergic to life in general. Can you get a total skin replacement???
In dealing with this hives issue that has no been going for a month and a half or more, I find myself once again wondering why people go to school for so many years and pay so much money to become doctors because it doesn't seem to me that they actually learn anything useful. I often find myself going to the doctor and either knowing more than they do or we sit there asking each other questions, neither one of us having the answers and I end up taking more medication in the HOPES that it will relieve the symptoms but do nothing for the cause because we have no idea what is causing the problem. Maybe I am just a medical mystery but seriously folks, I thought doctors were supposed to know stuff about medical stuff and be able to properly diagnose you and resolve your medical issues. So the saga continues... 
On an artistic note, I've been having a wonderfully productive last week and a half, and hope to continue that for another week or so before I switch off into family vacation mode and hit the road to see family both near and far. I wish that my time to work on my art was longer, but I will take what I can get. 
For the future, I am working on a possible group show with a couple of friends (more info to come when I have it) and I want to pick up my Conundrum project again once my face doesn't look like a bloated tomato. I figured that people didn't want to see that on a video so I thought I'd hold off a bit. But check the website that is connected with the videos because I am blogging in the mean time!
I think that's enough for now!
Hoping you all are having a wonderful week!
Stacey

Monday. Most folks fear and dread the oncoming "M" day. I am one of those folks usually but this time I found myself looking forward to Monday. So far it's been a day of reuniting with old friends, meeting new students and getting some work done. Add to that some good food, good music and air conditioning (which is a must in this weather) and I am having a rather wonderful day. My summer sculpture class starts today. I am sitting here looking across the room at a few of the students who have shown up early. They seem to be eager to try out what ever I am going to throw at them, though right now they are all on their phones, probably texting. 
So, a new day is half done but still full of possibilities. It's a pretty good life.
I hope that you can say the same thing about your Monday. If not, tomorrow is a new day. Here's to hoping that it will be better than what came before.
Cheers!
Stacey

I woke up this morning with a craving for Ants on a Log. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's celery with peanut butter and raisins. (pic to the left) I ate it often as a child but haven't had it in at least 25-30 years. As I was eating it this morning I was trying to figure out why I wanted it, what triggered the memory of it, where the craving came from. I came up with nothing. It's a tasty treat that is relatively good for you but it certainly isn't something that I would normally eat. I don't even normally have celery in my house but there I was, eating Ants on a Log with a big grin on my face and I realized that though I have no idea why, the joy I was experiencing was enough. I stopped wondering why and just ate up my breakfast and started the day with a smile. I added some scrumptious cherries and to top things off, some delish iced tea with lemon. And a bright good morning to you all!

Fueled with good food and a good mood, I am in the studio again. It took a while for me to get into the groove this summer because there were so many things that needed to be done to wrap up last semester and prep for summer classes and for next semester, but finally, last week I was able to start spending some quality time in the studio doing my own work. I've slowly gotten into a routine of 8-10 hours a day in the studio every day and holy buckets has that been productive! One piece down (see last blog post) one piece half down and another started along with a ton of prep work for 3 other pieces. It feels good to get into my own work in such a focused way. Summer is my time to create and this summer I was beginning to think I wasn't going to be able to do any of my own work, but I was proved wrong. I could dwell on the fact that I don't have as much time as I thought I would, but why waste time with that! I am eating up the time I have with relish and look out because some fabulous work is coming your way!

So for now I am going to sign off and get back to work. I will put up more pictures as things progress and maybe (if I can get my ducks in a row) a video on how I make these luminary forms so that you can try it yourself!
Ta ta for now!

Stacey

Hello and good morning to you all! I have been working hard lately on some new works and I thought I would share one with you. It's another in my Luminary series. Titled Out of Context I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Click on the image to go to the gallery to see some different views of it. I will add more as more pieces are finished. 
On other fronts. I am getting ready to teach a summer class in sculpture. It's a smaller class that I am used to teaching so I am thinking of playing with the projects and might shake things up. I hope they are ready to be guinea pigs for me as I try out a few new things with them. I am looking forward to that. 
After the class runs it's course, I am heading home to visit with family in upstate NY and then off to Illinois to see more family, go to a Cardinals baseball game, eat some good food and then back to teaching again in the fall. 
It seems that the summer is already gone and yet when I look back I am amazed and how much I have gotten done and how much there is still yet to do. Time does funny things when I don't have a set schedule to follow. Here's to hoping that the rest of the summer is wonderful, productive and interesting.
Hoping that you are all well and having a blast!
Stacey

After a bit of thinking and recovering from being ill. I have decided to relocate The Conundrum conversation to it's own website. The Conundrum blog in conjunction with the youtube channel will now house all the Conundrum content. This is a way to make my life a little more organized and hopefully allow me to get to things in a easier fashion. Having said that, I hope that you all check out both Conundrum places and join the conversations that are slowly (very slowly) beginning to start there. I have opened up the content to anything that we might want to talk about after realizing that my life doesn't just revolved around the arts, but that there are a million other conversations to be had! So, hop on over and check things out. 
On another note, I was hit three weeks ago with an evil skin infection that ended up causing me to have some sort of crazy drug reaction that resulted in head to toe swelling and hives that I am still trying to deal with. That's why I was incommunicado for a while. It is my intention to actually get to this blog more often that I have in the past. At least once a week is my current goal. I think it's a good one:) We shall see how it goes with everything else in life hurtling toward what ever end it has in sight for me hopefully a long long time from now!
As I said, I am still trying to get over this crazy medical stuff. On the one hand, steroids are wonderful in that they seem to be keeping the symptoms at bay, but on the other, steroids! yikes! I guess we have to take the good with the bad.
It was in interesting if non-traditional 4th of July in my house this year. I spent most of it cleaning my house as it was the first time I had a span of hours with nothing else to do. Not that I didn't have anything else to do, but those things that I had to do are located in public buildings that were shut down for the holiday so I was forced to be in my home which made me bit the big one and finally go all domestic on my space and clean in up. Granted, I only got two rooms done, but that is so much better than before so I feel accomplished and happy about how things turned out. 
I didn't make my way out to any fireworks displays what with the strange rescheduling of many of them due to the weather we were supposed to have. Turned out, the weather on the 3rd (the day many of the events had been rescheduled to) was the day of the most fabulous lightening and thunderstorm I have experienced in quite a while. I don't know if any man made fireworks displays were enjoyed, but I certainly enjoyed the natural splendor of the storm. I even recorded 8 minutes of it just for fun. Unfortunately you don't really get the full effect of the show as I was in my bedroom recording through the window and the rain was so intense all you see is flashes of light and not the actual lightening and because I was using my iphone, it didn't record all the nuances that I was able to see with my eyes. The video simply doesn't do justice to the experience so I won't add it here but believe me when I say it was awesome!

After such a great storm, what was a girl to do you might ask? I cleaned some more, made a stellar chicken, onion, mushroom and cheese concoction that I put on a tortilla and man oh man was it good! Not your typical hots and burgers on the grill for the 4th, but it made me happy. 
So, now I am finishing things off with getting back to my blog, The Conundrum and dealing with other online/paperwork type things so that tomorrow I can get back to the studio and continue working on some of my new works. 
I'm really excited about a few pieces that I have in progress. Pictures will come soon I promise.
So, on that note, I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the holiday weekend (for those of you who are from the US of course) 
Be safe and find the wonderful in the everyday!
Stacey