So what does Kat do all Winter, since she doesn't have shows?

I found these vintage painted Cabs in Colorado on my family vacation last summer.. I immediately started working on a project using them and then... lost my artistic vision... 

Well I work a full time day job, so that of course.

Second, I clean my house.  OK, I clean slightly better than I do in the summer, because I have actual chunks of time, instead of 5 seconds here and there.  But that's not what I really want to do or talk about.  Ever.

So Winter is time to recharge batteries, acquire new skills, brush up old ones, work on new designs, investigate art shows and new gallery opportunities, source materials, reorganize one's studio or just simply put away things you didn't have time to put away since July, and maybe, just maybe, finish a couple of  UFO's.  (Unfinished Objects d'art)

Every artist has them... you start something, all enthusiastically, and somewhere you loose your creative energy, or you don't have exactly what you need, or just just don't have time to do it justice.   Or maybe it doesn't work right, and you just can't figure out what is next.

The plan is to put the Cab in this vintage locket that looks like a pocket watch.  The left shows the raw brass, and the right shows it after I've added some patina.

Somewhere on my back table  lies this project... I started to clean up and sort and put away stuff from a whole summer's worth of work, but I haven't run across this one yet, to make a "mock" pocket watch.  I have about 1 foot square of my back table that I haven't touched in months... I'm hoping to get to it this weekend.  It's about the last place this project could be.. but in some ways I'm not sure I want to find it.. I still am not sure how to finish it up.  Still, the cab calls to me, and I wish to do it justice.   I have a couple of other things that I just can't quite give up on, even though one of them I started over 2 years ago.  It periodically rises to the top of the pile, to be discarded once again as I just can't move forward on it.

Other things to think about this month: taxes, end of year paperwork, and getting new jury photos done.  I'm hoping to have them in the next 2 weeks and then it's going to be applying to art shows.  Jerry and I will be doing a reduced schedule again this year since last year it worked out so well.  I suspect actually this is the "new" normal.  ( isn't that just a terrible phrase? )   Doing 20 + shows a year is just frankly exhausting! Last year we did 12, and this year I'm thinking 10 at minimum, but no more than 15.  12 seems like a lovely number frankly.