Moving from the frenetic pace of the heart of the fall semester into the very beginnings of slowing down – for snow, winter, for artistic reflection and renewal time. A sabbatical beckons in the spring – my first ever!

Back in October, the first intimations of winter and precipitation moved strongly enough through the season to force Persephone Cryptogamae, the UVM student site work, inside to Mann Gymnasium on the Trinity Campus.

And in and around that event – lots of delicious dance and music doings: I played my songs for the Sweet Sixteen birthday anniversary at Radio Bean; facilitated a flashmob choreographed by my UVM composition class at the UVM airport, and chaperoned them to the third Vermont College Dance Festival at Bennington College; recorded overdubs and started mixing in my three-song “albumette” recording project; hosted two live music and dance improvisational Mixers at the Light Club Lamp Shop; hosted Eat My Art Out – my tri-annual work-in-progress showing event –  at New City Galerie in Burlington, with wonderful artists Christine Holt, Lydia Kern, Ula Klein, Mia Pinheiro, Hanna Satterlee, Marly Spieser-Schneider, Denise Townsend, Avi Waring.  I visited my family in North Carolina for Thanksgiving.

I am looking forward to the end of the semester – student showings and creative offerings aplenty! – and then a retreat – with a new group of musicians and dancers – to the Dragon’s Egg just before the holidays commence, in a first round of investigation into a brand new dance collaboration with composer Randal Pierce.

This photo I call “Laxmi’s World” – my beautiful goddaughter Laxmi Sade, queen of her world on the family farm in Bear Creek, North Carolina.