It's a blur. Big Trip screams by in a whirl of 3 weeks. St. Petersburg buildings, too.What? You didn't notice I'd been gone. Well, that's OK. I'm sure you've been busy, too. And it's not like I haven't been back (at least in the real world) for a while.

Admittedly, I've been working some since returning home from the "big trip*" some teaching, some studio redo, another profile article for Quilting Arts magazine, sorting and clearing out, making sure the energy flows in and around El Cielo. But there's also been a good deal of lovely late summer just plain lazing around (while musing on next steps).

When I go on vacation, I REALLY go. I stopped blogging (oh, yeah, maybe you did notice); I didn't tweet but twice; I ignored FB friends; I didn't even go to "meetings." I felt as though all the batons that I'd been juggling --flinging around in the air with at least some degree of grace and style -- fell suddenly to my feet . Dropped, unloved, undone. Thank goodness for roaming and overseas data charges or I might have been tempted to keep all those lovely little flinging objects up there. But no, I spent my money on pepper grinders, handwoven linen, museum admissions and sundry souvenirs, instead.

But here I am, almost the eve of September '09, back in the virtual studio, having thought about it and decided, yes, I like this little part of my working life, this time on the page that records my studio life and the time away from the studio that informs and inspires it. Writing this blog is part of my practise as a working artist. Writing this blog is part of keeping track of what it is I'm doing and why I'm doing it. It's also a way to market my wares, be it art work, classes, workshops or ideas. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. I'll try to make it worth your while.

And to get back into the swing of things, and to catch up with my own recording nature, I'll be posting a few images from travel over the next week, interspersed with a preview of the workshops we'll be hosting here at El Cielo this fall and winter. Expect a flurry of activity on this site over the next few weeks -- then, no doubt, once I have the momentum going with the juggling act, we may find time for something pithier. (how long have I been promising to do an on-line course?)

The travel photos will be arranged not by place or narratively (you'll have to come over and see the slide show in person for that), but alphabetically -- that is -- Sensory Alphabetically. Starting now, with MOVEMENT. Can you jusst imagine taking inspriation from some images to create a great zoom, a sudden start, a dance, a circling, a splash, a slippery slide, a flit or flurry of a feeling in your next work of art?

Plaster cast of Medieval carving in the V&A, LondonOn the way from London to Dover.