The Gihon River runs through the Vermont Studio Center campus, turning as a river does just out my studio window. All day long, the mallards do their duck thing, swimming up and downstream. In the wild honeysuckle’s tiny bits of green leaves, cardinals perch.

In this week I’ve spent at the Vermont Studio Center, I’ve leaned with a ferocity and joy into writing. A week to write, unfettered by the everydayness of commerce and cooking, of checking the car oil, adhering to those endless lists of can the house insurance get a lower premium, and am I ever going to paint the back side of my house? A thousand things comprise a life — some stupidly trivial like repairing a kitchen cabinet knob, some sacredly profound, like mourning a parent’s passing. 

Does writing, does sculpture, printmaking, poetry, make the world a finer place? The jury’s out perhaps, but art certainly unites the finer parts of who we are as humans, and makes this life more bearable.

Thank you again for reading.