The weather has kept me from running for more than a week, the longest break since I got my rhythm back. I can do the cold, but less so the snow, which is piled high, and, worse, the ice. I haven't even tried to find my car beneath it.  I'm meditating spottily.  What I'm doing with utter consistency is wrenching myself around in my own head so that my default position is what I'm not getting done, not feeling, not succeeding at.  My thinking is like an obstacle course, or maze.  What I can say is, I keep trying.  I am nothing if not tenacious, even as my fear is that the struggle is just spinning wheels, no traction.  I know that's not true, but my psyche is doing its own thing and I spend a lot of time and energy wrestling with it.

At the same time, I'm doing a better job of disciplining myself so that work stays in the week and the weekends are free.  I'm overextended with the work I've taken on; containing it makes for very long weekdays.  The freedom of time on the weekends has its own perils, but is of course necessary.

So I am starting this Monday here.  These small acts of self-preservation are crucial.

My work has tended to strengthen as I yield to my innate sensibilities and use materials to pull them into being.  Something different is going on, and I'm having to resist the habit of dismissing the literal.  It began with finding photographs I took many years ago, before I was making art, and being struck at their aesthetic and conceptual consistency with what my work has come to.  My sensibility is already there, in them.  That led to using them for new thread-and-vellum drawings.  Here's a studio (i.e., amateur) shot of the first one, with a detail:

Liz Sweibel, 2011

Liz Sweibel (detail), 2011

It's all there:  the space, the structure, the weightlessness, the translucency, the process, the intention.  They do what I need my work to do:  slow me, keep me present so I can reach back to move forward, find the perfection in imperfection, build through repetition, allow for the slightest of means, hide nothing, leave room.

I have about ten now, all 9 x 12 except the one above, which is an inch or two smaller and more squared off.  I want to work on larger sheets (now that's new); this particular Canson vellum only (!!!) goes up to 19 x 24.  I'm very particular about the color and texture of the surface, so will sacrifice scale if need be.  I'm researching supplies, including colored vellum (!!!!!).

Here's the second drawing and a detail:

Liz Sweibel, 2011

Liz Sweibel (detail), 2011

I've started taking new photographs, and Thin Ice is from one of those.

Liz Sweibel, Thin Ice, 2011

Liz Sweibel, Thin Ice (detail), 2011