Like many people, I’m looking at time differently these days (and nights). Time moves so quickly that my family jokes the week feels like it’s almost over by Tuesday evening, for Friday and all that that we didn’t finish that week will be here in a few minutes.

Back in 2003, I used to eagerly anticipate each volume of the Utne Reader. I marked months by it. Subscribing to anything in print was a luxury in those single-mom days, but the magazine gave me hope that there was lots of intelligent life out there. I remember sitting at the breakfast bar in my kitchen, stealing a moment to read while my then young son watched PBS Kids and discovering a project called the ECOlogical Calendar that was in progress. I carefully tore out the sample page of Winter., put it up in my studio, and there it has remained, occasionally moved around whenever I’d rearranged the furniture, and always longingly admired. Rather than breaking the years into months and the months into weeks, it was based on the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. Each day was named something descriptive of life during that period such as “BleakSky, January 21,” or “Timeless, February 5,” and each with a description of why. “Timeless: long nights and gray days meld together.”

I’m pretty darn good at finding things online, but my searches never yielded the promised calendar. Periodically I’d search, believing that if the ECOlogical calendar hadn’t been created after all, surely someone would have taken inspiration and created something similarly outside the box. In the oppressively humid heat of August I stared again the other day at the beautiful page complete with lunar cycle and pondered “Flakefall” and “BeesBall” against the exquisitely designed, deep blue magazine page, and I decided to have another go.

And I found it!

Apparently it’s been around a long time. I contemplated waiting to buy and display the 2021 edition, but, well, “Why wait?” I thought. Skipping over the fact that I haven’t bought a paper calendar in the 21st century (though I’ve been supremely grateful for the Edward Gorey one my friend Carol bought me a couple of years ago), I bought the 2020 ECOlogical Calendar with only 5 months left in the year. I know. Wild, huh? Crazy. Impulsive. What can I say, captivity makes me live to the max.

Seriously, I decided this year is no time for delayed gratification of things that can’t kill us. Summer, in all its blazoned orange glory is now hanging right over my drawing/painting area of the studio. My new ritual is to make morning tea, plan my day (as much as one can these days), and discover what the day is called.

Sunday, August 16 was “RoadRunner.” Need I say more why this is cool??? Actually, calling the day Sunday, August 16, rather misses the point. It was RoadRunner, which also fell on a certain weekday of a certain month in case you need to know. Thoughts of ochre desert terrain and fast, long necked birds made me smile instead of remembering that the next day was Monday in all its likely frantic drama, which is always what I grieve about on Sundays. (Ok, the fact that I couldn’t help also thinking of my hero Wile E. Coyote was fun too.)

Looking at a long row of days in a line on my wall, instead of inside a box in an app on a device, makes me remember I’ll probably be there for a number of them. If we are lucky, there is time.

UPCOMING ONLINE CLASSES & WORKSHOPS

REGISTRATION FOR 3-D FILIGREE and More OPENS AUGUST 21, 2020 at 11:00 am EDT

3-D Filigree – Sculpt Your Russian Filigree into New Shapes (Intermediate Russian Filigree)

Say goodbye to safe, flat filigree, and take yours to new levels of complexity. Learn how Victoria designs and forms her complex filigree structures. Begin with a no fail method for dimensional filigree and move on to the complex forms you dream of making. Get help with designing, soldering, and forming to bring your ideas to life in a limited size Zoom classroom.

You asked for it, you got it – Live Class Support Time for my Russian Filigree DVD/video

Whether you are completely new to Russian Filigree, or you need a refresher in order to take more advanced classes in the future, my new live online time is an add-on support class, tailored to work in conjunction with my Russian Filigree DVD/video. The session will feature brief demos to answer your questions, give you the sense of classroom community, and provide a little structure to help get you motivated toward completing the video’s 5 filigree projects.

1-to-1 Soldering and Bench Support Coaching

Scared of Melting Your Work?

Things not quite getting soldered or fused?

Not sure if your flame is right?

Want Victoria to magically appear at your bench to help you with soldering, fusing, or other metal technical issues?  If you’ve got a device with a camera and an internet connection, we can make this happen.