The first care package goes out today on the Rufus and Lucy project. I am pretty excited about it! People have been subscribing to the blog to get updates and writing me to participate. I am glad people seem to like the idea.

It is funny to have two blogs but I guess this one has always been more personal and this new one is more professional. Here I get to say more about me and what it is to be an artist, the struggles and the joys. I have been in such a weird place lately. I am struggling with the whole gallery concept. I stopped the children's classes. It was not me. it was not what I wanted to do, I just I don't know, it wasn't right. I had a hard time with that. Then pair that with slow freelance times and June is always bad for pet portraits and you get a really struggling artist. But this isn't a woe is me post. Really. Last night I was talking to one of many friends helping me through this rough patch with their support and understanding. My friends rock, they really do. Last night I had a real breakdown. I was cleaning the classroom for the new artist renting the space and I was talking (ok, maybe crying) to a friend on the phone. "What if none of this works?! What if Rufus and Lucy never take off? What if none of my art ever gets licensed? What if no one ever gets me and my art? What if everything I can so clearly see in my head is actually not meant to be? What if it is not going to happen? Who am I then? What am I? I wake up thinking about my art. I go to bed with ideas. I can't get it out of my head. If I am wrong about this, if it is not in THE PLAN, what then?! This is who I am!! WHAT THEN?!" My friend was kind of stunned into silence. He had no answer. Of course he didn't. I got off the phone kind of mumbling, "Uh, yeah, sorry 'bout that. Emotional artist. Must be low blood sugar. Haven't had my ramen noodles today."

Yeah, I kinda freaked. I guess the answer is that I don't know who I am without all this. I have been financially pretty strapped lately. And yet while having no money I still built a website, painted paintings, made some dolls, organized a big round the U.S. project. Because I am insane. No, because I love it. Because I want, need to share it. Because I have to. I simply have to. And I guess I have to trust that if God put such a passion into me that something will happen with all of this. Because this is me. And it is who I am. And there must be a reason. And I have no idea what it is, but there has to be one. Because that is the only way any of this makes any sense.