I took a six week painting course for using mixed media and collage in my work. It was heavenly the first day, setting time aside to be creative. It got stressful after that.

Some Saturdays I couldn't make it to the class because we didn't have enough people working the shop. Turned out most the time that was fine: One of the days we were doing encaustic (which is not my favorite in both the fumes and the results I get). One of the days was our final day, for which I would have rushed a finish and not been satisfied. Another day that I thought I was going to miss, I got to go. It turned out to be helpful in keeping me going rather than just hanging it up and going back to my thing.

So although the class didn't really work out for me, I gained several insights:

• keep the momentum going
• work with what you have already
  

And I remembered an agreement that I'd made with myself to put inclusions into my paintings that would make giclees clearly less than the original: bits of tile or gadgets or 3D something so that a photo doesn't do it for the painting.

I also learned that saying I'm going to paint every Saturday morning isn't a real life thing. I can hope to paint Saturday mornings, and some of them I will get to do so. But as with all that I've accomplished so far, it's mostly going to get done in the space between, in the time that is the gap between real events. That's when I get the really important stuff done.

I need to clean my studio, to make the space and have it available for when the time comes. I have learned that the time comes when I show up. Not being able to show up at a class taught me something about doing things another's way. I cannot.