As evidenced by my lack of attention to this website, I haven’t done much more in the last six months than move home, office, and studio and try to get set up before fall. Progress is being made, but the best use so far of my heated, insulated, three-car garage—which is also, fortunately, air-conditioned—has been many a passionate game of Ping Pong. The Ping Pong table has been put to other uses—card-building, packaging and scarf-cutting—but I haven’t done too much painting or writing in there yet.

Last week, however, I did a watercolor of a Manistee beach for a client who liked the print I had on my website but wanted an original painting. I did three paintings before it became clear to me that I can’t copy a watercolor—watercolor has a mind of its own and if I pay close attention to it, sometimes I can follow it someplace interesting. Anyway, I chose the one I liked best to send along, but the others came out pretty well, too. They are now available on the art page.

Now that I don’t work in an apartment in a Victorian house, and in fact have a separate work space, I can finally paint with oils. I look forward to this adventure. My only formal art class was about fifteen years ago at Ox-Bow, the summer school in Saugatuck for the Chicago Art Institute. It was a one-week class in oil-painting which taught me the basic materials required and how to mix paint, an incredibly useful class which has helped me in all my artistic endeavors.

I’m hoping to set up some small classes for fall and winter and will put out some sort of brochure or email when I figure out what might work. Meanwhile, I am attempting to illustrate Yoo Hoo Moon—my most successful children’s book—and republish it with my own art. Other projects are in the works as well, but right now so many things are calling for my attention that it seems easiest not to do anything at all. It’s summertime, and a real firecracker of a summer it is, too. I have a garden for the first time in about 20 years and what could be more important than a sunwarmed, just-picked tomato?