(be)Coming Home

I have not written in a terribly long time, and this post may seem redundant if you read back in my history.  Nonetheless, I am once again confronting the issue and importance of "Home" to me - to my psyche, to my internal balance, to my happiness.

Andy and I have temporarily gotten a second home in Chicago for the nest few years.  The choice was all about logistics, frankly, and we chose Chicago since it is a vibrant city, something important to us both.  Since we made this change 8 months, I have felt somewhat like an uprooted tree.  I'm fine and healthy, but without my friends, without my art-filled home, without the objects I have collected throughout my adult life, without that west coast air and vibe, I often feel like a perpetual tourist, a person out of place.

There are many components to this unbalanced feeling, but one of the biggest ones is ART and handmade objects.  We decided to leave all our art and furnishings in our San Francisco home, so Chicago has been an opportunity to begin to collect again.  While that opportunity may sound exciting, it is daunting - financially and aesthetically.  I only want pieces I love and don't have much time to look, nor can I afford everything I might want. (who can?) . So this is going slowly, painfully slowly.  Yet, it is beginning to look a bit more like home with the additions of a few new works of art.

For years, I have admired the work of artist Gugger Petter.  The textile artist in me loves the medium of newspaper and altered tapestry technique.  The visual artist in me just plain loves the imagery.  Every year I see her work and think, "Someday".  Someday happened a month ago when I serendipitously stumbled across her show in San Francisco.  Andy and I made the leap and purchased a portrait and it finally arrived and is hung.

I cannot express how much joy it brings me every time I see it.  The power of art to transform my thinking is extraordinary.  I know this.  I talk about it all the time, especially given my profession.  But when it happens to me in such a personal way, it knocks me over as if it were the first time.

Welcome to my home, Gugger Petter.  Welcome home, Lisa.