Happy Lent to everyone, especially all you Catholics (and defunct Catholics)!

View of Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, Italy, 2020.

Catholicism is a fascinating religion — no matter how long it’s been since I attended mass or thought of myself as Catholic, I still have the urge to dress up, trudge over to church and get an ashy cross on my forehead today. Luckily, Lent has become a tradition for more than just Catholics, encompassing people all over the spiritual spectrum to commit to new promises for 40 days - kind of like a renewal for lost New Year’s resolutions?

Prayer candles give some light to the shadowy interior of Saint Mark’s side aisles.

This year I’m doing three Lenten challenges: one spiritual, one career, and one personal.

40 Days of Do Something Just for Fun: this means not for any gain except for fun. I’m still evolving this but do hit reply with your ideas… I’ve come up with taking walks going nowhere, sitting and having coffee without doing work during or being on my phone, going on a short trip around my region here in France with no agenda, trying a new restaurant in Aix, reading for pleasure not just for stress relief or to consume time, etc.
40 Days of Making the Same Type of Art - Nude Line Paintings: This is a big one for me as one of my main stresses right now in my art work and career is that I don’t have enough work with a common theme. I love making the line drawings and have gotten good feedback on them, so here we go with 40 more!
40 Days of Talking to People Again: I had a hard time deciding on this one. With social media, it can feel very much like we are connected personally, but in reality, it’s not on a very personal level. Short of calling new people everyday which would be tough here in France, I’m vowing to reach out to a new person every day for 40 days (including people I don’t know well) to ask how they are and what’s going on in their lives. We’ll see how this one goes, it may need some tweaking.

Nude Art Line Painting, inspired by my work as a boudoir photographer. (Click here for information and to purchase.)

Lastly, I wanted to share some of the art I’ve been working on this past month. If any of these peak your interest and your lenten promise happens to be Support Self-Representing Artists then… reply to this email! Also please reply with any thoughts on your Lent or my Lent, whatever you like! I love hearing from you.