PALE.

Extraordinary times.

My apologies for not "being here" more often these last weeks, but work has been intense to say the very least. Do forgive me if I feel a bit cocksure today. I've just now, in the last hour, caught up to myself and I'm so relieved that the pressure, ( self imposed, and utterly ruthless.) is finally if not off, then nearly so. Now, as I calculate I've a measly twenty twenty-five pages to go before the major work on my book is over. But, I'm out of duo-shade paper and desperately low on ink.

So, starting Tuesday, more work to gather funds to pay for it all.

Art, paycheck to paycheck. Well, I'm just a working man after all, no matter the pretensions of the "Artist" with a big "A". I get up and worry about the same nonsense everybody else does. Then I go to work.

OK, something else. I want to relate something not having to do with the all consuming book.

Something that was on my mind a lot thirty years ago. Something that has recently reappeared on my artistic radar.

White.

To many artists the color white is almost a dirty word. Funny, that. A substance that muddies color and turns a perfectly good painting into chalk. But I was obsessed with it. Not so much white paint, but whiteness. A sense of overwhelming light that permeates a painting to the point of otherworldly blindness. Well, quiet without warning the urge to explore this idea popped unannounced into my already vastly over worked head the other day.

So, that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to do, WHITE.

Never fear, I'm not coming out with indecipherable chalky miss-mashes. But you may notice a few new things in the gallery in a bit that are very, well, white.

Oh, shit. I'm not explaining this at all well am I? It's such a difficult concept to get across until one is face to face with the thing.

I suppose you'll just have to wait, or you could go goggle Whistlers "Little White Girl" or something. That'd be a start.

Anyway, right now, I'm going to relax a bit, something I haven't done in several weeks with any success. Maybe this time without the sword of Damocles hanging over my head I'll make it.

Swords have a way of nerving me up a wee tad y'know.

Blessings to you all,

M.Z.