Feeling so, so inspired after this weekend's festival & visit from one of our favorite friends, even though I wasn't able to participate in some of the festivities to the extent I had wanted to.
I'm feeling like I have much of my energy back, pain has mostly subsided and all signs point to recovery going better than we initially thought.
We're converting the Airstream into my studio, and kid-proofing it this time so my daughter can come hang out and do art with me. I haven't had a proper studio in a very long time, and the delay in getting tipis built made it look like I wouldn't have one until spring. But here we are, and I'm extremely optimistic that I'll be building, painting, and holding space for tattoos again very, very soon. Eventually I do think I'll build a tipi specifically for tattooing, but for now we'll be using them for guest spaces and building one very large ceremonial space. In the meantime, the Airstream works quite well as a studio. Quite frankly, in its current state, it will make a better art studio than guest space anyway.
I painted one of the objects that is a critical part of my performance for the Dia Muertos event yesterday, and have been figuring out many of the other details and making a list of the few things that I will be purchasing for the ceremony & celebration.
I have plans to finish processing the fox bones & sheep skull that I started forever ago this week, and I'm praying that they haven't degraded too much, but whatever their condition it will feel good to finally get those finished and usable for some projects I have planned.
My neighbor had a ceremony and slaughtered a goat with her family this weekend, so I inherited yet another skull I get to start on as well.
Lastly, a new friend of ours gifted me an entire hide worth of black Italian leather to create things with. I'll need to get the proper needles, awls, and some other supplies (which I've needed to anyway to work with the other leather I inherited last year) prior to doing anything with it, but I have many ideas and cannot wait to share them when the time comes.
This emergence from my recent low-energy and relatively depressed state feels profound, and I feel like I'm just radiating gratitude for this much hoped-for change.
Some more updates, since it's been pretty motivating for me to share:
While kiddo was napping today I was able to make a significant amount more progress on some projects that have been sitting around, and some new ones.
A friend of mine brought me a dead (found) fox a while ago, and we cleaned off most of the tissue together, however the bones, along with a sheep skull my neighbors gave me, then sat in water for somewhere between 8 and 10 weeks while I was fighting morning sickness and then healing from the recent loss. I had been putting off that project for so long since I had just developed this strange fear of becoming nauseous if I smelled the bones, but today I finally got everything de-greased and into a peroxide soak. Some of the more fragile bones had soaked for too long, and became compost, which is unfortunate but not the worst outcome for something that would otherwise have been thrown in a landfill.
With these, I can now make talismans for two friends: one new friend who's moving into a new place, and another friend who I just feel would appreciate or benefit from having one in his space.
Additionally, the skull will feature in a sculpture project that's been awaiting me finding someone to assist for at least a year now.
I was also able to paint a few eyes for a project I just started, and flesh out ideas for yet another project from found materials that has been just sitting in the back of the old studio building for a very long time.
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