When last we left off, it was earlier this year-January to be exact- and Lucas and I were prepping for a very busy Mardi Gras season, trying to finish our Carnival masks. Here's a shot from our festivities- the purple mask was finished but the green one didn't quite make it in time for Mardi Gras 2012. There's always next year!
Now, fast forward to the present- end of July. A LOT has happened in these past few months that I've been absent from the blog. The big news is our baby: I'm due to give birth at the end of this year!! Woo-Hoo!!! Our finest work of art yet!!!! :) We found out early in March, right after the Carnival season, and as you can imagine we've been inundated with all things baby ever since then. My schedule was thrown off earlier in the year with that lovely pregnancy nausea for about two months straight, but now in my second trimester I'm getting back to normal (whatever that is!) and trying to play catchup and feather the nest- which seems, at times, like a Herculean task.
Some things never change: the studio is still, I'm sad to report, deeply in transit, crammed with an assortment of garage sale items, art supplies, and general chaos (its very hard to even see the floor these days). Originally I was using the kitchen table to spread out our mask making facilities while we were organizing and arranging things in here, which worked fine back then but not anymore. The studio itself is in the process of being converted into a nursery for our li'l guy's arrival, so all things art are either being boxed and stored, hung up in different areas of the house, or moved out of the way completely. The drafting table will switch places with the love seat in the living room, and we will finally make a mask gallery in the living room to display our work. I'm hoping to make the nursery a haven for both baby and us- a quiet spot in the midst of a hive of activity. Now there's no excuse not to get this room finished ASAP! No more procrastination- and that's a very good thing.
We plan to continue our mask making business in a couple of months, after a small break of repurposing/rearranging the house. I'm looking at it as an opportunity to get back to basics and to see where we've been and where we are going. The one thing that bothered me is that we were always too busy to make a special display out of our art, and Lucas's work was always hanging in the studio, where no eyes except ours saw it. Now we can move the art into the front and center of the house and let our friends and family enjoy it as well. And, with hubby's encouragement, I'm going to make a special gallery of black and white prints of my best photographs to hang up, both in the front of the house and a few shots for the baby's room. We will also try to collaborate on a special little mask to hang up in the nursery to celebrate baby's arrival, and Lucas will be doing some type of art, most likely a mural, so that our little one will be surrounded by mommy and daddy's best work. Once all of these things are done, we will get back to our mask making in full swing. It's going to be a time crunch, but we have pages and pages of great designs on paper, and several masks in their final stages awaiting the finishing touches. I would dearly love to get those completed before the end of the year- because once our sprout is with us, and the holidays are upon us, its going to be another blur of activity before we are able to settle into a halfway normal schedule of mask making some time in 2013. Once baby is here, it will be another indefinite break before the mask work resumes once more. But I've always believed if you love something enough and it enriches your life in some way, you'll make the time for it- and even though time is limited, we will always return to the arts and to our masks and other special projects. And now we might have a li'l apprentice on board to join us as well. The thought of shaping a child's love of the arts and encouraging creativity is something that brings joy to my heart. Here's to future family times together, art and otherwise.
Hope this finds my lovely readers doing well. It's always a pleasure to open my virtual door to you and welcome your company. Enjoy your summertime, and enjoy exploring the world of art and imagination in your own unique ways!
~Jamie P.
