Isn't amazing how one influence here or there is enough to change our life's course? The sweetest thing in life is just being open to newness, to other ways of thinking and doing, open to pondering... to dreaming.... to change.
I returned last night from my wonderful week in Santa Cruz. My friends, Jean and Mike, live slightly south of Santa Cruz in a small town called Aptos. We spent the week taking a class at Cabrillo College, where I concentrated on wet and needle felting taught by the amazing Lynda Watson. The classes and teachers at this community college are taken from a very talented pool of Santa Cruz artists, and I found the entire experience to be filled with art awe. Jean took a challenging abstract painting class, where she mastered her thought process towards acceptance during the first afternoon. I love when that happens. Change, and a force towards new thinking is so good for us!
Here we are: me, Lynda, Mike, Jean and super sweet classmate, Liza
We could wave to each other from our classrooms across a large grassy lawn, and go off for lunch to a wonderful local spot called Carried Away. Our days were spent talking art, teen struggles, and life philosophy, and laughing over how old we are getting (we've been friends for over 20 years), dissolving into hilarious tears about doing everything in the world NOT to google when we just couldn't remember even the most mundane things. Oh, heck! Our week ended as our visits normally do... feeling like there just wasn't enough time to do all we wanted to when we are together. Oh, Jean (and Mike!), I just love you to death!
I want to tell you all about my felting adventures, and will be sharing some amazing photos of the work our class did last week, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, I just wanted to check in and say Hi! and see how things are going in your neck of the woods. For now, I will leave you with a very short video from our next-door classmates, lighting and electrical. This was not created during their 3 week class, but from a Santa Cruz artist who shows his work at Burning Man. He is Todd Williams and he creates remote controlled shark lights called Land Sharks. They were a crazy hit during the Art Opening on Friday night...
More about Todd's amazing Land Sharks here:
Sharks signing off for now...
xx, Val
