06/29/2023
And then this happened. Part 2 💞
Mid winter, I was watching the Maine weather from Austin TX and feeling a little guilty for not fighting the winter survival game alongside my friends and neighbors. The temps plummeted below anything I've personally ever witnessed. I think Maine hit 30 below or better! Crazy cold. It's our practice to turn off the well pump in the loft of my shop in the case that we lost electricity followed by heat, which would freeze the building. We are not exactly sure how it happened, but...the well pump was left on... AND we have an incredible natural well that doesn't quit under the worst of drought conditions. All that combined to a 30-day waterfall through the ceiling of my shop. We found out after receiving the electric bill the following month. Our amazing neighbor John Eastham willingly investigated to check and see if maybe someone was possibly living in one of our cabins and using electric heat to keep warm. I never expected to hear that my shop had been flooded with 10 inches of water for a month. All customer keepsakes go where I go. No keepsakes were ever at risk, however, 11 years of building a workshop, tools and supplies, Airbnb supplies, all records and personal keepsakes and photos of my children during the school years, all the little notes I saved over the years, my jewelry samples and displays, all filled a 10 yard dumpster... and more. My husband Jim, John, and my brother Don worked for days stabilizing the building and emptying the destruction. The list kept growing. The new washer and dryer, the steam iron, the spools of wire, the antiques, paints, and tons of supplies were gone. The shock was real.
🍃But there was something brewing below the surface that did not make sense. A little spark that let me know it was all ok and maybe better than ok. Maybe this was important to my growth as an artist. Then came the two little words that have always fueled my creativity for as long as I can remember. The two words that keep a cycle of creation and destruction in perpetual motion - WHAT and IF?
SO, can you build a textured wall that looks like stone from joint compound... apparently, yes!
🍃Many more 'what ifs' to come!
