Things change.  They ebb, flow, grow, shrink.  They shift.  With every step, with every breath, things take on a new shape, and if we're paying attention, we can get caught up in the shape-shifting and feel everything as new.  Different.  Fresh.  Somehow this is where I found myself this summer, observing subtle moments when I could feel my world revolving.  Evolving. So, I grabbed hold and unfolded into the shifts and today I find myself saying a good-bye to r mccormack writes.

Wait.  What do I mean by all this?

Well, I mean that the time has come to let go of older concepts as my heart pulls me toward new ones.  It means my small home studio, overflowing with writing and art projects, had to be organized and everything that exists as an extension of my workshop needs revamping too.  So I'm simplifying.  Consolidating.  And this means my art site, gongoozler art, and r mccormack writes blog will combine as one site called storm row studio.

Though a work in progress, storm row studio is up and running, both as a new business and in the online realm.  I hope you'll visit the blog soon, check out my new digs, see what's grown out of my time as the artist and writer behind gongoozler art and r mccormack writes.  These two places are the now and forever foundation that will support me as I move onward...and hopefully upward.  I'm grateful to all of you who visited the website and blog, who offered encouragement and participation. In the near future, both will be taken off-line, but for now, they stand as is, guardians over all the changing, ebbing, flowing, growing, shrinking, shifting newness.

"Everything you can imagine is real."  Pablo Picasso

I've spent the summer being inspired...

...and putting that inspiration to work.

Where will it lead?

To something new and different...and real, I imagine.

Hope you're having a fine summer too.

"Hanging softly over the black Singer sewing machine, it looked like magic, and when people saw me wearing it they were going to run up to me and say, "Marguerite, forgive us, please, we didn't know who you were," and I would answer generously, "No, you couldn't have known. Of course I forgive you."

Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Last Wednesday teacher, activist, and artist Maya Angelou died.  The news reached me via Twitter, as I happened to posting when a flood of beautiful sentiments filled my home news feed.  Profoundly moved by tributes and comments, I read post after post. Her own words rang out and were shared by people of all ages, colors, creeds, and genders.  It was deeply touching, and as an artist myself, several of the quotes people added to the conversation struck me in the heartspace.  And not just because Maya's words are always succinctly powerful.

For me, part of the impact came in seeing just how many others had been touched by the same sentences or lines from a book or one of her poems.  I knew she was popular, of course.  She's a best-seller.  But I didn't know know. And seeing the proof of how far one woman's words can travel, I had to pause and give thanks for her will to use her voice and pursue her life.

Then, in that midst of that pause, something new occurred to me.  In the act of living her life with an expressive and willful nature, she's provided a great lesson for writers, artists, and...well...creatives of every kind.  I mean, consider this: Maya was San Francisco's first African-American streetcar conductor...at the age of sixteen!  She wanted that job, so she got that job, ringing that trolley bell with confidence.  It's so wonderful and simple.  And a great inspiration!

For many of us, the inspiration doesn't end with her writing.  She also demonstrated her commitment to her own courage by actively perfuming the world with real ideas about equality and peace.  How?  By showing up and telling the truth about herself.  By speaking from the gut and gracefully refusing to apologize for having something to say.  In the end, this is what most of us want...to tell our story in our own unique way, with poise and clarity.  Watching Maya do it, revealed how alike we all are in spirit.

To close, I'll pass along more of Maya's words.

May she rest in deep peace.

"There is no greater agony 

than bearing an untold story inside you."

"If you're always trying to be normal, 

you will never know how amazing you can be."