This was a saying that my Grandmother Halice was very fond of. Not that she had a lot of vices, she was a teetotaling Northern Baptist after all. She just kind of liked to have it both ways, but then don’t we all sometimes.

This week I am guilty of not practicing the kind of studio best practices that I like to stick to and I am paying for it with a terrible crick in my neck.

Some best practices I try to keep:

• Take regular frequent breaks whenever you are doing detailed or difficult work so that you can stretch or walk for a bit.
• Take a break each day for a healthy lunch.

This week I have been hunched over the sewing machine sewing tiny little appliqué pieces onto batting and interfacing. I stopped for lunch today at 1:30 and scarfed down some peanut butter and crackers.

The way I got myself into this quandary was good at least. I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in a show during the International Encaustic Conference in Provincetown this June at the Adam Peck Gallery. There is a theme for the show (Black Tie (optional)) and a deadline to get a photo ready for the catalog. I had several ideas of what to do for the theme so I decided the best way to decide was to schedule an appointment with my photographer to give myself an earlier hard deadline to work to. My appointment is Tuesday morning and I’ll be at Fenway on Monday so the clock has been ticking very loudly.

I finally got the sewing done:

“Black Tie”, 11″ x 11″ encaustic monotypes, batting, interfacing, thread (in process)

This is one that I like the looks of from the back:

I am going to call it a night and wait till tomorrow to cut the edges off and mount it onto the panel that I got for it. I’ll post the really good photo of it when I get it back from Jay, my wicked good photographer.