never too busy to worry
come worry with me
Alas, I missed the biweekly schedule last week but here I still am, just one week behind.
And a busy three weeks it’s been! When I wrote last, I had just wrapped up 9 months of covering for a colleague’s maternity leave (she lives in Canada in case you’re American and wondering how the heck she finagled that), freeing up some time to take on a little proper project management work alongside my day-to-day tasks and I dare say I’m kind of enjoying it. I’m also working away on PDUs to renew my PMP this summer (hard to believe it’s already been almost 3 years since I spent 6 weeks studying for that exam!) and even lending my pro bono project management skills to a local grassroots community art effort I’m super excited to announce in another newsletter or two.
Liz Harvey, the lost ones are whispering and Head Trip, 2015-23, on view in Stitched at the Bedford Gallery Jan-Mar 2025 At the end of that particularly exhausting work week, I treated myself to an extra long lunch break to check out the current exhibit at the Bedford Gallery (after which I walked to 100% plant-based Rooted Coffee Co. for an afternoon treat). Stitched: Contemporary Embroidery is definitely worth a visit before it closes at the end of this month if you’re local but haven’t seen it yet. You can see all my favorite pieces here.
Local high school art teacher and cartoonist Briana Loewinsohn has a new graphic novel out that looks great, but I had to go back and read Ephemera first, a graphic memoir about mental health and loss. I don’t know her well, but I recognized her from this Oakland Public Library event as our kids have overlapped at various schools here in Oakland. I had no idea she was a published author. Should I interview her for season 2 of my podcast?
As teased at the end of the last update, I’ve been plugging away on this body of work all but maybe 2 of the past 18 days (not including today), participating in this year’s 100 Day Project. Some days it feels overwhelming on top of work, home and family obligations, bike rides, etc., but I’m trying to remind myself to focus on reestablishing a consistent practice and the daily (more or less) progress, not a finished product every day. I have ideas/photo inspo for 120 of these and they will completely cover the floor (and/or a few other nooks and crannies) of my 120 square foot studio. If I can maintain this pace, I should be done and ready to install sometime in the fall.
Speaking of bike rides as I usually manage to do here, we missed a weekend of team rides to visit the in-laws a few weekends ago, but squeezed in a new trail in nearby Nevada City. Watch my Hoot Trail video here.
Finally (counting the 100 Day Project updates above as multiple entries, not that anyone else is keeping track or holding me to 10 items every other week), today is the 5-year anniversary of the last day kids attended public school in person in Oakland for the 2019-2020 school year. I kept a “pandemic diary” on my blog every couple of weeks on average and wrote a recap on the day before the 3rd anniversary here. A square of one’s own, working title for the body of work mentioned above, is kind of about this time, looking back on the past 5-6 years via photo look books I’ve made each year since 2019, and reflecting on all the ways the pandemic
damagedchanged the course I thought my life was on during the 6 months or so prior.
P.S. the more time that passes since I finished reading All Fours by the more I seem to think about it. I haven’t been able to look through my notes much yet, this weird fear that it’ll totally suck me in and I won’t be able to get anything else done. But I took a peek at my notes today, and I’ll just leave you with this fitting sentiment from the narrator early on in the book: “I was busy, too, but I always have time to worry.” Returning to this newsletter these past couple of chaotic months has taken the edge off just a little and I hope it does for you, too.