School and a new piece

The kids have started school!  This means I am alone for three hours a day, twice a week.  CRAZY.  I have decided to use this time to focus on art making for the first time since undergrad.

It's actually pretty amazing to work on my own art and not feel guilty about it.  In school, I was like, I'm paying for this studio time!  I better get some work done!  And my teachers were always hanging around, and the other students.  After school I felt like ... it was maybe self-indulgent to do my own art.  My first job out of school was in a completely different field, and that job took many hours of my day outside of time in the office, so it was hard to really work on art.  

Then I went to grad school for art therapy, spending a short amount of time on my work but mostly focusing on other people and their needs.  And then I really didn't make my own art, when maybe I should have...  I remember spending a few days on my first crochet piece and thought, wow, this is amazing, I could be doing this all the time (but never made another piece).

Now that I don't have the time to work as an art therapist, and I spend most of my day focused on the kids and their needs, it still does feel self-indulgent to work on my own work.  But at the same time, being a productive artist makes me feel more like a whole person, and feeling like a whole person is important when you spend so much of your energy on others.

So here is what I have been working on this week.  I made the frame over the last several weeks but the crochet was yesterday and today.  Today I worked for almost an hour and a half, with my music blasting - IN MY OWN HOME.  It felt amazing.

Now it's time to go pick up the kids. :)