and now summer

Today I slept late.  All the way to 7 am.  Then I made waffles.

This was the beginning of my summer break.  

Commencement was way back on April 30.  I did a gallery talk in Greenville the next day.  The day after that I got up at 6 am, ran, did PiYo and headed down to the basement studio to make sculpture.  Almost every weekday since, I've got up at 6, ran, did PiYo and sculpted until the family came home at dinner time.  Then I'd do my best to stay awake until 9:30 or so and I'd crash.  

If it sounds like a sin to have a more rigorous work schedule when you're supposed to be out on summer break, there's a good reason for it.  Two actually.  Blue and Violet get out of school for summer break tomorrow.  After that I'll be the full time daddy daycare until mid August.  So if new sculptures were going to be created, they needed to happen in the 3 1/2 weeks between the end of my school year and the end of theirs.  

I'll still be working on art after their summer begins, but not in the same way.  I have about a month to get stuff ready for my annual summer studio sale and then I'll need to work on some new drawings for the rest of the summer.  The drawings can be done upstairs in the air conditioning and it's easier to keep an eye on the kids there.  And there are vacations to go on and we have to have summer fun days at least once a week to keep us all entertained.  

Getting up early and working hard has paid off though.  In those 3 1/2 weeks I've created 7 new sculptures, one of which is a large scale public sculpture to be installed in June.  It's been a productive time.  My back hurts and I've got a lot of steel splinters in my hands but it's all worth it.