Full Day

Storytelling in Focus:
1. Just completed the first session of the new Working Artist Mastermind Group organized and led by Sean Buvala in which a group of storytellers from across the country will work together by phone for two hours once a month for a year. Very exciting start-up session complete with assignments and personal goal setting. I am really glad to be a part of the process.

2. Scrapping It: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle - Adjoa Burrows and I start a new 10 week art/storytelling workshop with 18 middle school students tomorrow . The workshop will focus on environmental preservation - and we are planning to use primarily scrap materials, I met with Gabrielle Morcate, the school's art teacher, today and she is very enthusiastic about the theme and our project ideas.


3. Birthing a new story. February 15 is the first public performance of my new work, Pushing Boundaries, an hour program. I have been working on it for a year. I thought it was in good shape, almost ready - until two weeks ago when I listened to the tape twice and then ripped it up and started again.

I know, I know. It sounds crazy but that's how you make art. Often the first take on something is not the best way to tell the tale. This is the story about my years as a feminist activist for women artists and for the Equal Rights Amendment. My war stories. When I listened to myself talking with a local newspaper reporter this morning about the story I could hear that I was on firmer ground.

This past week-end Elizabeth Ellis talked about the importance of telling a new story - speaking it out. A story happens between the storyteller and the listener. Those people "listen" the story from you. I know that! I needed a wise woman to remind me.

Today I arranged to tell the story next week in a Women Studies class at American University and three days before the performance in a Women Studies class at Rockville Campus, Montgomery College. I am grateful to the Professors for their interest and their welcome.

So, the pressure is on. A rush of adrenaline and palpitations feel familiar. Maybe this is what I need for a proper birthing of this baby.


Family Pride - it's worth mentioning
1. Word from our son that the Supreme Court unanimously supported the case he has worked on for ten years!. WOW! And, would you believe it - he is out of the country on the day they announce it.

2. Tuned in to CNN just in time to see my cousin's daughter, a White House national reporter, toss out the first question to the New Press Secretary at the First White House press conference of the Obama Administration. She is so professional, poised and on-point - a young woman who knows her business.

I admit it - I am tired tonight. It has been a full day. Well, actually a full week. Not complaining - its all good. You can be happy and tired. But I was very glad we had good left-overs for a quick supper tonight.

Maybe this week we will finally try out makiing bread in the new oven.

There were a few flakes of snow today - almost a flurry. I have hope.