so this is where I have been....

I just finished teaching 2 workshops... so to speak... at DePaul University and Columbia College. Previously I was going to teach a drop spine box making class at Columbia but due to low enrollment the class was canceled.  However, I was contacted by the head of the Special Collections at the Richardson Library at DePaul and they wondered if I would consider teaching 2 of their staff members at DePaul.  Well of course I would!  I spent the past 3 Wednesdays in wonderful company teaching the ins and outs of constructing drop spine boxes.  I forgot how much I enjoyed the career I had in a previous life (book conservator/conservation tech in the Ryerson Library at the Art Institute)... but sometimes life just happens.  

Then Saturday I was off to Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts (where I got my MFA).   I have been teaching workshops there since roughly 2000.  This time I taught a How to Make Your Own Book Cloth class.  I will admit I felt a bit unprepared... I usually teach box making.  I am very confident in my technique  (it is quite simple actually to make your own book cloth) but I have never taught it as a class... originally someone else was supposed to teach it but something came up and I offered to fill in.  When I got there in the morning some of the supplies I requested were not there and then we ended up running out of some supplies half way through.... but in the end it all worked out and everyone left with some nice handmade bookcloth.  Next time I would do a few things differently but over all I things went pretty well.  

Today was also my oldest last day of kindergarten and next week my middle son (with special needs) begins a 2 week break before starting summer school.  Summer puts a whole new twist on things.  Our family schedule has literally been packed for the past month but I am hoping that things will start to slow down a bit.  On Saturday we have a soccer game and a cub scout fishing derby, I need to do some grocery shopping and laundry and well that is our day.  Sunday is mine!  After church, I already told my husband that I NEED to get some work done in my studio.  I have several "almost finished" commissions that I want to complete and a few projects that I am itching to start.  I seriously don't think I have spent more than 5 minutes in my studio doing anything productive in the past 3 weeks... (except my work on the Convergence Project, but that was done mostly at my kitchen table where I could drop it at a moments notice and finger swipe some small foreign object from the baby's mouth, set Sam up-right after he tips over in his chair for the tenth time and help Andrew with his homework)... it is sad really.  So I have started my WISH LIST of things to accomplish on Sunday.