I know, I vanished again, and for how long this time? You’ll have to tell me. As those saintly few of you who’ve been keeping track of me know, was locked away preparing for the Worldcon artshow in Montreal. Here is the poster advertising my most recent project. Look below to my Valentine’s post and you’ll find the Tortured Heart, the artwork that won me a shiny blue ribbon in the art show mentioned above. Feeling dizzy? You have survived the initiation, welcome to the club. The show was small but the people were lovely. Those months of studio imprisonment left me feeling so lonesome, so burnt out and withered up and less than human, that I was so glad for all this, for the fellowship and kind words and everything. I’ll do another Worldcon post once the aftermath has settled somewhat, but I just wanted to bounce some love and thank everyone and give the whole wonderful ordeal my goodbyes and goodnights before I slunk off to bed.

Did I mention I had a rough Valentine's?

Again, its been months, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to put a word out.   Maybe its because things seemed too strange, too fragile, and I was waiting until I felt like it was within my possesion again, but when will it ever be.   I’ve been scared.  I’m swallowed up by secret worlds, by things that seem too silly and common to confess, but powerful things too big for me to even get my words around.  I’ve been lonely, and the harder I try to cure that, the lonelier I feel.   I keep looking for something.  I push them away so I have space enough to look for it.   Silly.  The irony kills me. 

Winter is too long.  I forget what its is to be outside.  I forget the love I feel when walking in the green kingdom.    Someplace out there, there is a garden that blooms for me.  There is a brook to nourish me, there is a sun to warm me.   Out there are uncounted tender, beautiful things, just like me, trying to survive, trying to become something.   I feel god’s warmth and lifeblood, see its light drawing shapes,  spinning mandalas of growth and shadow.   In the winter, I forget the deep contentment I know when I feel its breath upon me.   We’re apart now.  Winter is the long seperation from a lover.  The winter is too long, this hateful thing, this cold indifference.   

Just like those I wait for.   All these distances.   

Spring is coming, though, its inevitable.  I can feel the slow thaw.   The world will be coming to life again.  I’ve been hatching a menagerie of little creatures- Dream spawn, I call them; primordial, surreal little beasties.   I sell them as darling little pendants and charms when I find some one brave or mad enough to adopt one.   The rest remain in my collection.   Soon, I shall have a whole cabinet of curiosities which I shall invite you all to wonder over.   And this idea sets a glad little fire alight in my heart.