As I revisit this blog, I am ashamed to see how many YEARS it has been since I last posted here. This is my effort to restart my badly interrupted art journey and reconnect with my former passion for watercolor. 

As a short recap, following the caregiving of my husband and eventual loss, I tried to get back into painting once again. In the following years I had hand surgery, knee replacement surgery and the caregiving/loss of my brother, all of which precluded my physical ability to do art, to say nothing of the emotional hits to my motivation and inspiration.

I made several attempts to restart my watercolors, but felt I had lost so many of my skills and instincts for it that I got discouraged and didn't pour much effort into it for a long time. Then in late 2018 I had a failure of my mitral valve which put me into heart failure and on the list for valve replacement surgery. Unfortunately, at that time I also had double pneumonia, so had to get cleared of that before surgery. Delays were many, and on March 16, 2019, the valve ruptured. Fortunately, I was in the emergency room with severe fatigue and shoulder pain at the time and emergency care was rendered to help me survive the night and the following night I had open heart valve replacement surgery. After 24 days in ICU and three weeks in a rehab facility, I was able to come home. I had to have help for weeks and weeks, but finally began to be able to live independently. I am sharing this much detail with you in order to explain the REASONS I have not been painting. From here on out these reasons should only be considered to be EXCUSES, as I have recovered as much as I will and should be physically able to get back to my paintings. Then, the Covid situation started early this year and I had more excuses for not painting, at a time when I have all the time in the world, isolated in my home. 

How does one get the passion for art fires burning when it has been so long? I have started by cleaning both my watercolor and artisan jewelry studios and revisiting what I have accomplished in the past. The cleaning brought me great satisfaction, the revisiting the accomplishments not so much. Very discouraging to see what I accomplished in the past versus what I feel I an capable of currently!

I plan to drag out my Yupo paper, which in the past has been a forgiving and inspiring medium in the past. I will post whatever I produce, with the hopes of kicking my artistic butt to learn again the joys of watercolor. I have accepted that I will never be 100 percent back my former physical self, but I feel I should be able to muster the strength to achieve that for my artistic and emotional status?! If you are a former follower of my blog and get notifications of my entries, please comment that you are still with me and offer any insights into my current, sad, unmotivated situation. 

I hope you all found some joy in this different holiday season and will stay healthy. Living in Arizona means I am living in one of  the nation's hot spots for the virus and plan to stay safe as much as possible, so should use this alone time more wisely and productively than I have so far.