Here's the studio with furniture/work materials in it. You can see a bit of another artist's studio behind the half-wall.

The table where I have all my collage stuff

I have an icon of St. Antony on my table to watch over me.

"Fracture," a collage I did in March

Another March collage, "Pieces of a Lost Creature"

He is risen!

Our choir sang Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus for Easter, both at the Easter Vigil and this morning for Easter Sunday. I’ve listened to it many times, but have never actually sung it. The soprano part isn’t terribly hard (just very high in places), but there is one tripping section I was having trouble with, so I found this YouTube link from the BBC’s “Sing Hallelujah” project, where I could listen to the whole chorus sung by sopranos only. The project also has altos-only, tenors-only and basses-only recordings–and ones where you can hear it with any of those parts missing. It’s really helpful.

I sang the response to the Exodus reading at the Vigil. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. I’ve been getting over a sinus infection for a couple of weeks now. My poor voice made it all the way through the Triduum liturgies, the Vigil, and into Easter Sunday, before it finally gave out and I had to stifle a coughing fit that welled up in the last few bars of the “Hallelujah” today.

Easter always brings me joy.

Easter is also a time when I give myself a break from beating myself up for always falling short of my ambitions. At least for a day.

Speaking of which … in my last post, over a month ago, I said that I’d keep track on my blog of the hours I spent in my studio (the goal is 16 h/month) and writing my fiction (goal is 32 h/month). In March, that tally came to:

March hours spent in studio: 13.5

March hours spent writing fiction: 24.5

So I didn’t quite make it to the goal. I will renew my efforts for April. I’m already behind. So far it’s studio: 0, writing fiction: 4.

In March I completed two monotype collages in my studio. I scanned them–was going to post them here–but the scans didn’t come out too well. When I’m at the Art League on Tuesday, I’ll take pictures.

My studio at the Charlotte Art League, still mostly bare.

Starting today, March 1, I begin renting a small (one-fourth size) studio at the Charlotte Art League. I’ll also be taking shifts on Tuesday as a gallery host at the art league, which will give me enough credit there to cover my studio rent.

I’ve wanted to have a studio for years, a place for printmaking and collage. My rental contract stipulates that I must spend 16 hours a month in my studio creating art. When I was in Kansas City, I spent about 12 hours a month in my monotype classes–and I produced more work in those classes than I ever have, before or since.

So I decided that along with spending these 16 hours a month to create art, I will spend 32 hours a month writing fiction. That is my contract with myself, and it begins with March. Art: 16 hours a month. Writing: 32 hours a month. I’m going to keep track of these hours here on my blog.

For a while I couldn’t taste or even breathe through my nose. And because of the flu-like thing I lost my voice and most of my hearing for a while. But my senses are returning. So at last I can cook, and sing. I missed both of those things. Trying to cook without being able to taste; or sing without being able to hear–it’s like writing in the dark. You hope your writing is legible, you’ve formed the words many times, but you can’t check on what you’re doing.

Mom and Dad came to visit last week. It was great to see them. I hope they can come back to Charlotte again soon … we miss them.

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(sent by something called “magic-of-making-up-review.net”)

We still have the small tree up in our apartment that Robyn got at Family Dollar for $5. We each contributed our personal ornaments to it. I have the Moravian ornaments Mom gave me–the candles, the choir singers, the baker, the church–and I dug out a little wooden ornament of a cardinal that I bought for myself at a craft fair last year in Vermont on my 36th birthday.

We’ve made vague comments about taking the tree down, but I don’t really want to, yet. Liturgically, it’s still the Christmas season until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which is January 15 this year.

Christmas feels like two separate holidays to me–one the holiday and one the holy day. The holiday has the presents, the decorations, the family traditions; and then there’s all the Santa and Christmas specials and merchandising too. The holy day is about the incarnation of God, the light shining in the darkness that the darkness cannot overcome; about the Word become flesh; about scripture and song. The two Christmases are so different that I don’t even try to put them together anymore. Two different days with the same name.

Now it’s 2012, time for me to make a new list of resolutions (I did nine out of the 19 resolutions I made for 2011). It’s my 1 year, according to the numerological chart, which means this is supposed to be a year of success and high energy for me. I hope it kicks in soon. I’ve been so scattered lately.

I don’t usually stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve. I go to bed at 10 or so. The new year is going to come whether I am awake to see the clock change or not, I figure. But this year I did stay up with Robyn. We wanted to watch Lifetime Movie Network, but we’d already seen the movie they were showing (”The Party Never Stops”). We wound up watching the Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin’ Eve stuff–sponsored by Nivea. Everyone was wearing blue Nivea hats … really, how can you “sponsor” New Year’s Eve?

When I go walking now, especially near sunset, the crisp (though not too cold) air; the smell of the drying leaves; bare branches, but green grass on the ground; the particular kinds of vegetation–these sensations all combine to make me feel as I did in high school, in college, winters of my youth, winters I knew before I left North Carolina 14 years ago.

In those years, I took so many melancholy walks alone in winter, and I always thought on those walks of who I would become.

"Void" is one of the pieces I'll have at the sale.

I entered five works in the Charlotte Art League’s December art sale / exhibit. While I was down there today, I switched my work to a different rental wall. My first wall was on the end of a side corridor; people didn’t come down there that often to look. The new wall is in a better location, along the main corridor, so I’m hoping more people stop to look at my work (and buy it).

The number of the new wall is 11D. Instantly I thought: 11D–11 December! My birthday! In the Tyranny of Jessica, 11 December is the 50th anniversary of the robot landing!

So I decided to take the new wall number as an auspicious sign. Good things are on their way, I tell myself. This is my lucky number.