My First "First Friday Artwalk" Back Home

This was a jubilant entry ... with the beginning of February come two of my favorite things: 1) Ashland's First Friday Artwalk and 2) Valentine's Day.

With this being my first Friday Artwalk back in my Ashland Art Center Studio since I'd been home from Mexico ... it felt like a personal welcome home celebration! The Art Center had selected as a theme for February, the Rabbit, in honor of the Chinese New Year! I would love to have had time to whip up some playful lil' bunnies ... but my amazing friend and peer Art Center assemblage artist, Dale Muir, punched out these fun rabbits from Cherrio boxes. Isn't he just darned cute? This rabbit sat on one of my painting frames and watched people pass by. Several dear friends passed by and I got hugs hello. This colorful sketch is the view into my new neighbor, Joann Manzone, chatting in her next door studio. Yes, there really was a tall fellow wearing that fur coat and hat. He was quite noticeable!! By the end of the evening I felt embraced, cuddled back into my community and it was so grounding after "floating around for three months", Mexico or not.

Valentine's day popped upon the scene, catching me almost unawares. I found the perfect card for Roland several days ahead but, Roland had outdone himself. I was home that day and received this fresh bouquet of lovely pink and white flowers, accompanying card had this soft pink petaled flower on the front. I cut round holes in the following journal pages and, with my exacto knife, carved out a concave hole in which to glue my 3-d flower. Roland forwarned me we had a dinner date that evening too. Keeping the destination a secret, he tucked me in the car and we drove into Ashland. Finally, parking behind the Ashland Springs Hotel, he revealed that "Larks" was our destination. An adventure in eating, since neither of us had stopped in there before, the atmosphere was casual, nice, the food, probably not what we'd go back to. But it was sweet walking Cody after dinner amidst the crisp evening air and returning to our fire-cozy home.

How solid I feel being back at home ... savoring the blessing around us here ... "there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home"! Yes, Dorothy ~ ~ you were right.

Arriving Home & Heartbreak

The final entry, ending our Mexico travels . . . brings me, at long last, home. Awwwwwwwwwww, home. Such a simple word, but how very much it holds with in those four letters. Little does one value nor realize what "home" really feels like until you are away ... for a good length of time.

We left Redding, nesting along familiar routes and sites. Often we travel south from Jacksonville towards California so it's like seeing ole' friends driving this road. As we pass the agricultural fields freckled with olive trees, some cherries and stretching fields, one of my hallmark sites is Mt. Shasta (can you see it there, far in the distant horizon?), her first sighting here in this sketch, top left. Once weaving thru the mountains and over the Siskiyou Pass, we coast down into the Rogue Valley. My heart begins to relax, soften. An anxiety begins to disappear. Sights like the pink mornin' fog across the valley from Ashland, makes me smile. We stop in Medford and unhook the RV from the PT Cruiser, thinking it would be easier to quickly back in the RV into our driveway. This affords me a quiet, wide vantage point and I nearly cry seeing the joyful giant poppies crafted and planted by Cheryl Garcia (http://www.greatmetalwork.com/Exhibits.aspx) in the South Stage Cellars vineyards just south of Jacksonville. Of course, this view went into my journal! I'm happily home.

The adjacent page is a less joyful statement. Some conversations about Mexico and the possibility of moving there have caused some tension and very personal introspect for my hubby and I. This illustration hopefully gives you a "feeling" for my experience. I relish these kinds of emotional posts (not the painful part) but the invention of how to express outwardly, my inner. You can see I've incorporated an actual needle and (from my wonderful "Assemblage Artist Friend, Dale Muir) an actual porcupine quill! Love to hear what you, my readers take away from the image - to see if I was successful.

I remain . . . blessed and loving being home. Appreciate your traveling all the way to Mexico and back with me. Now my daily adventures here in Southern Oregon begin. You see . . . the lessons n-e-v-e-r end :)

Nor do I want them to . . .