March, March, March!  Wow, how fast the time passes. My head is a full of "things to remember" around this time of the year.  First I am leaving for my annual visit to Japan in the end of this month so I had better to start "souvenir" shopping to my friends and family. Surely this is a very important Japanese custom that I still respect and follow.  You would never show up or visit your friends and family with an empty hands, how embarrassing! While I do not buy anything that pricy, I would love to select something uniquely American or Colorado, hopefully.  So I start with listing up all the names of people, including my family, whom my husband and I are more likely seeing during the visit, including one of those "just in case"/unexpected.  

Secondly this is the Month of Printmaking, Mo'Print now.  Technically the event has started since last month, many of "main events" fall into March and some April. As we speak of Mo'print, I will be a part of Monotype-thon event on this coming Saturday, March 3rd.  The event will be held at Art Student League of Denver and it is open to public.  There will be ten or so printmakers will be showing their style of monotype printmaking at the upstair studio. Just in case you are wondering, I am in the first group of the event which is 9am starting. I have also donated my first linoleum cut prints, a small size, for fundraising. The show will be at a brewery in the Highland neighborhood and it is a bar for young and "hip" people, which disqualified me for both categories.. So I am not sure if I have an encouragement to show for the opening reception or not but certainly pray for the successful night for the fundraising part. I am showing one more piece at Open Press also and its reception is March 9th.
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The third part of things to remember in March is that all the show applications for the summer.  While I have applied for the Summer Art Market,  Cheeseman Park, and Crested Butte so far I will more likely be applying to the show at Cherry Arts at Stanley too this year.  My goal is to get in three show this year but I must see how the all judges see my works. Pray, pray, and pray.

This work here was finished a few days ago.  Fo this particular piece, I used the color I normally do not use, meaning not my favorite kind of blue.  I recently heard immensely inspiring quote while I was watching a tv show.  The quote was "I must change to stay the same" by Willem de Kooning.  What a stimulating quote,  an immediate contemplation follows. .So this is a reaction to the quote and the result is, based on my personal and very biased opinion, something different  intriguing, and pleasurable.  Life is good and keep on printing! 

February arrives. All of sudden I see the colorfully highlighted deadlines of application for this summer art shows on my calendar.  Oh brother, it is the time of the year again. Please don't get me wrong, I am so appreciative about the opportunities but the process of applications are somewhat dreading simply because it is hard to select "five images" out of whatever number of work I have.  Do juries love what I love? Should I select prints that show a bit more technical?  What about the color pallets?  Does this look too busy?  Oh men, she/he may hate this little off registration....On and on and on,  the most imaginative conversations inside of me continues while I am filling the application page.  After a few hours of a same old same old struggle, I pick what I love and look good as a group.  A sense of peacefulness gradually comes back.  Life is still good and keep on printing!