Happy fall to you all, I hope it has been treating you well.

These past two months have happened all at once and I find myself a little...surprised by the fact that we are in the beginning of October.

These past two months have been vessels for huge changes in my life. It's moved so quickly and it's hard to process. It's required me to move more slowly and take a step back from the pressures of maintaining an active studio practice.

I'm at the point where you've stepped back from the chaos of change and can see the "after." And it's strange. Sad and beautiful all at once.

Part of me is happy that the season is changing, too.
 

A few things:

1. I moved and now am working out of a Studio apartment. My art studio is now a studio corner. Still getting used to this and getting set up but I have new windows to look out of and a big wall to hang work. Nervous and hopeful all at once. I published a visual ode to my Studio on my blog. You can see photos throughout the years and read a little bit more about this special place here.

2. Only have a few new things to show. One of my first paintings I made in my new place was the one I included in Tessa Greene O'Brien's show-within-a-show, "Garden Party" at the Buoy Gallery. *see below*

3. Due to loss of studio space, I applied to SPACE Gallery's Rent Free Studio Program for BIPOC artists. While I didn't get a studio space, I was offered a 3-Week Residency! I accepted and will be there at the end of February and into March.

4. I have a painting that was accepted into Collarworks 2022-2023 Flat Files. I will be sending "Spring flowers fighting through the heavy dirt" out next week to Troy, NY where it will remain for the next year. Purging emails this week, I saw my application last year where I did not get accepted. So exciting and rewarding to see what trying again can do.

Tis all for now. I hope you enjoy the warmth on these oddly warm fall days. And the chills of the nights and mornings. I've been looking at the leave and fall foliage. Crouching to look at mushrooms. Standing awkwardly on the streets looking at lichen on the trees. And indulging in way too many Halloween Oreos.

<3 Raquel

*New Paintings*

This is one of the first paintings I made in my new apartment. So grateful to Tessa Greene O'Brien for creating an opportunity for community and art sharing through this postcard exchange. This piece is a part of her show-within-a-show, "Garden Party", at the Buoy Gallery (Kittery, ME). This show is up simultaneously with her own, "The Spins," and I can't wait to go see all the work. On view until 11/5.

This painting was so effortless and simple but I hold such an affection for these little marks. I almost submitted this to Garden Party but liked it too much so I kept it.

"Spring flowers fighting through the heavy dirt," 2022.

Acrylic ink on Arches. 7" x 5:

This painting will be heading to Collarworks in Troy, NY next week where it will live for the next year (unless someone buys it!) for their 2022-2023 Flat Files.

What else?

I led my Tree Walk!

As part of my final capstone project with the Maine Master Naturalist Program, I led a Maine Street Biddeford Tree Walk. For this I designed a Zine that attendees could take home with them and refer to during the walk. It was fun working digitally and I truly love my RED MAPLE LEAF that I "painted." So vibrant and I'm really proud of how it came out.

*L i s t e n i n g to*

I saw Haley Heynderickx with the Westerlies at SPACE Gallery.

(':

*R e a d i n g*

I finished reading Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief by Victoria Chang. It was one of my favorite reads of this year. So deeply poetic and beautiful. So beautifully soft, silent, tender and attuned to life's pain and beauty. From this I think about how in memory, we are never truly alone.

An image from when I first started working in my studio back in 2018.

And one of the last photos I took of my studio at the end of August.

See more Studio photos here.

See ya next month <3

Raquel