Today I am looking into the future

Yesterday was the deadline for fellowship applications... I dropped off my application in person, and I must say, it felt really good seeing other Artists there, excited about getting everything together and submitted. There was one girl in particular I remember who was so thrilled, she didn't think she was going to get done, and to hear her say " I figured if I didn't make it then it just wasn't meant to be" made me feel really at home. It reminded me what it feels like to be around like minded creative spirits, and how the spiritual element in art can transform a bucket of dust to gold.
This past week wasn't easy. I wasn't feeling well, and it was very cold and windy outside. It got dark early and my home life had a very strange balance of strength and falling apart at the seams kind of mixed up together. At more than one point I was wishing I was the kind of person who could give up, and just curl up in front of a fireplace with a feather blanket and sleep...
It's probably a good thing I don't have a fireplace or a feather blanket because it really sounded like a good idea to me at the time!! I still feel a bit washed out and tired today, but I am really glad to have gotten through it. The timing of this opportunity is so important in my life right now. Especially with my job ending in the spring. It would work out so well with the plans I am putting together twords freelance work with illustration/graphics.
Below you can see what I have been working on. 2 of the 3 houses were ready to begin photographing. The work will have a life of it's own for a while as it develops and transforms to maturity. One beautiful and unexpected thing that is happening now, is that the birds have taken to hanging out in the morning making a bird bath of the water buckets and then fluttering in the sand where mothers little angles are. I will have to get some pictures of it. It is rather charming. I am working on the house of transformation... and my own transformation as well. I am thinking about making a book with the pictures when they are all completed to combine my thoughts about the work with the images.... Or maybe just poetry and pictures....