I’m the first to admit, I can be an over-learner. Other times I don’t really care about the details, the fine minutiae, or even the over-arching tale. But when I’m trying to learn something, trying to do something, I’m there. I read, I listen, I ask questions.

I quilted for many years. I could tell you all about techniques, about the work of contemporary quilters and about antique quilts. I made several quilts a year, often a couple big quilts in there. One year, about to photograph two quilts for a competition the next day, I got up in the morning with two quilts and went to bed in the wee hours with a third totally unexpected quilt. It was a few more years before I got into that competition but I got there.

A few years after that, I made a quilt that got accepted. It was a big deal. Not only did I make the quilt but I took the slides that I sent in to be juried. That was a big deal to me. I’d learned a lot about photography in college and then didn’t use it in the way I thought I would.

Anyway, then for a few years I didn’t make quilts. Didn’t have a quilt thought in my head. One day I decided to make bread. I got a serious book about bread making (not the super-serious book that I still covet, The Taste of Bread but a great book nonetheless). I learned about the impact of temperature and action on the dough and the differences in flour and all sorts of things and learned to make a pretty darn good loaf of bread and more importantly, pizza dough. There’s something seriously alchemistic about taking flour and water and a little yeast (very little yeast) and for the pizza dough a splash of oil and making something that is life-sustaining.

I tell you this because you’ve been watching my entry into watercolor and I appreciate your response a lot. I’m warning you that there’s more to come. Because that’s what I do. I gather the tools, I take some classes, I read, I look at the work of others, I watch videos, but just like quilting and bread-making, the work is the work and it’s got to get done so I do it. I’m a beginner and I’m getting better at knowing how it works.