Merry Christmas!

With all the hustle and bustle that comes with the holiday season, I had to step back and consider what is really important to me.

First off, the disappointment that I felt this year with the election, I have decided to remove politics from my life, and I doubt that I will ever vote again.... The electoral college proves to me that their votes are the only votes that count, so I'm not wasting my time or energy anymore. Yes, I understand I won't have the privilege to complain anymore, but I really don't give a shit.

On the flip side, I was notified by Artpace (almost two weeks after they said they would notify artists) that I was considered a qualified artist to have my art selected by international curators or staff for shows in 2017. Now lets see if my work gets selected. It's a waiting game.

In January of 2015 I took a 30 day sgraffito glass challenge that was created by Kelly Crosser Alge through Facebook. Each day starting January 1 we created a drawing with powdered glass on glass, and fused the pieces in the kiln. After each piece was finished we posted our art each day on her blog Modern Ancient Glass. I had a BLAST doing that challenge and my drawing skills improved over that month. Last week I found out the Kelly was traveling to Texas to teach and I signed up for the class immediately! The class is in January over the MLK weekend at AA Products in Seguin Texas. The commute for me will be an hour each way for 3 days.  For a great instructor that's not bad!
So next month I will be dusting off my jars of glass powders that have been dormant for a while now!

For now I want to concentrate on baking cookies, wrapping gifts, and talking to family and friends on the phone that are too far away to visit.

                                        I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!!!!

Moving on

I met a friend for lunch yesterday and I was telling her that I was waiting to hear if the application I submitted for my art would be accepted and told her I should hear from them by the 4th..... Well it was already the 7th and no notification, which meant they passed my art up. Oh well on to the next venue application!

Call me crazy but I really wish that could afford to buy one of those little old abandoned/dilapidated homes on the eastside of San Antonio for about 15-20 thousand, and fix it up a bit (and paint it a bright color:) for my very own art studio. My husband thinks that an absolutely crazy idea.  I do agree that it is a lot of money to invest just to use as a studio when I don't have that kind of money to begin with.......  He is adamant that I would be happy in a storage shed, in the back yard, with a couple of window of course.  Considering I have no where to work, I may just have to take him up on the storage shed.

I really miss my old studio...... but I love my new house!

keep it small

The boarding house was on 114th street a couple of houses down from the boardwalk. Two bathrooms shared by 11 rooms.  Some rooms had one or two people in them and some rooms held more, much more. No guests after 6pm read the sign on the front door. The tall lanky guy that lived next door to me, in a ten foot by ten space would open the door about 7pm on bitter cold nights, and a brood of six kids would quietly climb the stairs to sleep for the night. The ages ranged from single digits to young teenagers, they were all his kids. One of the girls who seemed to be around my age, or year or so younger was friendly to me. She had a sad smile and rarely spoke, but I liked her.  Living in a small room myself, my possessions were very few, but I knew I had more than any of them.  One of my cherished possessions was a miniature porcelain set of living room furniture in a tiny box that fit in my pocket. I had no where to display it but I loved it. It had pretty pink flowers painted on it and consisted of a couch, two chairs and a coffee table. Too tiny for even for a doll house.   It was December and it was freezing cold one night and I passed that girl in the hallway, I just had to give her that tiny box.  I knew she would be able to keep it since it was so small. When I handed it to her I just remember the smile on her face and the eye contact we made. I couldn't Imagine having to spend all day outside and sneaking in just to sleep.  I wonder how she is and how her life turned out.
  

National AIDS day

 I thought that I would share some of my memories.........

There's a building on the corner of 124th street and Rockaway Beach boulevard that I spent my childhood summers in. The building was built in 1920's and had these beautiful curved stairs that were straight out of a hollywood movie with a grand foyer to match. My aunt and uncle lived on the second floor of the building and I always thought rainy days were the best! I would run down the stairs to the the first floor and knock on the door that was directly next to a tiny elevator that hardly ever worked.  A pretty young woman would always answer the door with a toddler in diapers clung to her leg sucking on his pacifier. It was Frances I was looking for to come out and play in the foyer with me. His little brother John could only look at Frances as he ran past them and out the door. Frances and I were the same age, about six years old. Frances had blonde wavy hair like his mother, and John had the straightest brown hair you would ever see.  Frances didn't seem to care that I was girl, he would always come out and play with me.  We would spend hours together, making up games and laughing, he was my best friend every summer, until my aunt and uncle moved a few years later.  

We all grew up and I actually moved back into that building when I was 19 with my 2 year old son, as a single mom. I thought John and Frances had moved out, but their Mom was still living in the same apartment, next to the rickety old elevator that no one dared to use.  I lived back on the 2nd floor, but things were very different this time, the building wasn't so grande the way I remembered as a child.  I always knew that Frances and John were both hemophiliacs, but I didn't know that Frances had passed away the year before I moved in from AIDS related illness at the age of 18. When John turned 18 he also got sick and passed away from AIDS related illness. The saddest moment in my life was when I was walking home holding my little son's hand and John and Frances Mom walked up to me and said "both of my babies are gone, I have nothing left to live for".  The sadness in her eyes broke my heart, all I could do was stand there and hold my baby's hand bit tighter.

The year or so I lived in that building with my son,  a young coworker and friend, had left her two babies with the sitter and didn't come back- she had AIDs and didn't want them to see her die. My next door neighbor was in his late 20's and always flirted with me and say he wanted to marry me..... if he didn't have AIDs- his entire family had disowned him because of his illness and he was totally alone.....  I had another friend who got into a car accident that left him with a hip injury and during surgery he got infected. His girlfriend left him and told him no one would ever love him, she was wrong, he was loved, he was a beautiful person.  I won't forget my friends. They left way too soon....