Such exciting new goings on!

I have had some major changes in my life lately! I must say they have been some really remarkable ones.  As many of you know, I've taken lessons from an extremely talently and nationally known gourd artist by the name of Joyce Campbell. Well we've become very good friends during this past year. I spoke to Joyce a few weeks ago and she let me know that she was going to be moving to California to be close to her mother who is 86 years old now. At that time she asked me if I would like to take over her business so to speak here in Arkansas where I live. I was soooo honored that she choose me to replace her in her classes here!! Of course I said yes and it's been a whirlwind ever since. I will be having classes every Saturday just as Joyce does at Hill Country Gallery in Mountain Home, AR. I'm also now an Associate at that Gallery and am trying to put many Gourd Art pieces in there. Therefore I've been very busy because I've got Gourd Art in several other places too! Here are a few of my current works:

Somehow I managed to cut off a little bit of most of the pictures but hopefully I will get better at doing this, and hopefully you can see enough of the picture to realize what I'm doing. I've been working on several other pieces lately plus I'm making a trip to purchase uncleaned gourds for me and also for my classes tomorrow. It's a 10 hour drive round trip plus some time to pick out gourds so it makes for a very busy day. ( at least 12-14 hours) I've been purchasing a lot of tools and mediums for the classes. Here's a pic of one of the classes and one of the ladies who made a couple of gourd art masks last week:

The classes are so enjoyable and you don't have to be an expert to take a class. The students just really have fun. I even have an 80 year old man who is really good. He and his wife spend the winters in the area and this will give them something to do. He also does stained glass and you should see what he's done with the glass and gourds! I will do my best to get more posts on my blog and do it more frequently. LOL Hope you enjoyed today's post.

Another very exciting and proud moment for me is the fact that I am now a part of the Artsy Bloggers group!! Every week we link you up to everyone in the group so that you can check out what's going on with everyone in the group. Here's my linkies for this week (there are three new bloggers in the group including myself):

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