I just had a great week in Iowa where I reconnected with my former faculty at the University of Iowa Dept of Art and Art History, including David Dunlap and Laurel Ferrin, among others. I sat in on a drawing and painting critique and also went to the annual Arts Fest, where I met Robert Glasgow and met some of his graduate students.

I'm hoping to complete the MFA I started over ten years ago. There will be some logistical issues for sure but the fact that my program director at the UIHC is supportive of this makes them seems surmountable by comparison. The support just floors me--in a good way. I am still breathing. No need to put those ACLS skills to work just yet. Save that for when I actually have the MD and the MFA.

Also I learned about artist Daniel Hayman from novelist Nick Flynn, one of the authors at the conference who is doing incredible work on issues of torture. He's promised some guidance organizing collaborations with artists and writers. Daniel Hayman links to the Philigrafika blog, a show I saw this Spring when I was in Philadelphia taking the second part of my national boards.

Sometimes you just have to dream big. Here is one of my recently altered prints. It's a small monoprint that has little slits cut into it so the light bleeds through. The squiggly line is actually the shadow of the yarn that is woven into the print. I love that the cuts, the light coming through them, and the shadow cast by the thread pulled intermittently to fill them each makes a different expressive mark.