A year ago, before the pandemic became real, I was invited by the Tampa Regional Artists to do both a demo and a workshop for artists in their group as well as anyone visiting the Tampa area. 

Along came a virus and this all went up in a puff of disbelief. 

Fast forward a year, and we are moving forward with both the demo and workshop, but it will all be online and the best part? 

You are invited to join the fun! 

The class demo will be held on Thursday evening, May 13th, during the monthly meeting online (non-members are welcome!) and the class will be held the following Saturday, May 15th.

Because we are not actually getting together on location, the class will be based on photos from the area around the TRA art center as if we were. The area is a mashup of beautiful old houses (many on the historical register), some of which have been converted to businesses, old oak trees, gardens and if you walk several blocks, Tampa Bay. 

The class will focus on working quickly as if you were really on location, the benefits of working quickly, embracing our quirky styles and handling those pesky mistakes that are bound to happen!

Sound like your kind of visit?

Click here to learn more about TRA.

Click here to learn more about the demo. Non-members are welcome!

Click here to learn more the class and to get registered!

Frantic or panicked (it was hard to tell which) cheeping brought me to the windows overlooking our backyard. 

"Shards of A Splintered Heart" - Painted with watercolor, memories and tears

While painting this quilt pattern, a small splatter of salty water hit the page.

A tear.

As I often get "lost" in the process of creating and go off in my mind to other worlds within this one, it wasn't really a surprise. It's happened before. Creating seems to lower my mental walls just enough to allow me to revisit old memory and witness a new perspective on some experience or relationship.

So, no, the tear didn't surprise me too much until I started following my thought-thread back to find the source of the moisture. Until that moment, I didn't realize I was giving voice to the pain—and healing—of losing my mother after a particularly long and vicious battle with dementia.

My mother was a seamstress of great talent, but making quilts were never her thing though she did make a few. She was more of a collector and she enjoyed them in her everyday world rather than keeping them for "company" or special occasions.
As I let the quiet tears fall, I knew they represented the stress and damage caused by an illness that knows no kindness and gives no quarter. They were for the years lost even though she was alive, for the impact it had on her, my father and my siblings as well as for the loneliness and lost feelings that still pervade my mind. And for the helplessness we all felt as we watched her mind being slowly destroyed.

As I followed my thoughts more consciously, I decided to give witness to the pain, guilt, loneliness, anger, frustration, and yes, even happiness, that her death brought. The swirling mess of volatile emotions, some seemingly at war with one another, were slowly brought to life on the page of my sketchbook.

When I began to lay out the quilt idea on the page, I made several changes from the original pattern I found. The shape of the heart (I made it fuller), the outer edges of the heart shape (I wanted it to be less fragmented) and the small splintered pieces inside (to represent my own emotional shards that have yet to settle) were either changed or added as I went along.

Much of the relief (and happiness) I've felt is in knowing she has set down the burden of her illness. The feeling of being lost and lonely sidle up next to the gaping hole of lost love I will no doubt feel until I no longer walk this earth. Anger that I lost so many years with her to this insidious disease and bewilderment that she's truly gone. All of this was and is overlaid with frustration that there was nothing, absolutely nothing which could be done to slow or stop the illness.

As I poured forth that complicated mess of feelings, I began to feel lighter, a lessening of the weight that seems to have been stifling my soul for months now. And while the weight is not completely gone, the slight lightening gives me hope that it will eventually be transformed into something different and new.

They say time heals. I say art heals more. I am ever so thankful to have an outlet by which I can process the big and little hurts we all encounter as we stroll upon the surface of the earth.