ONE YEAR IN

We have been here in Lunenburg for one year now and here is an update for any one interested. We have some family here, Darcy's sister Tammy and her husband Dan and their son Dawson. That and the ability to buy a home here for what would have been the deposit on the same house on the west coast made the move very worth while. We enjoyed the company of Tammy's family but they will be gone now until next summer when they return from Captain Dan's last world voyage.

We have been working hard renovating our little house while running a gallery and studio in town. The gallery has not done well financially but it has served to introduce me to the locals and allowed me to maintain a steady flow of new works for the Summer tourist season. I had hoped to get more students in during the winter but that did not happen and now we will be forced to move out of the retail before the season starts. This sounds worst than it is, we have a month to find other stores to pick up the inventory on consignment and we are looking forward to spending the summer working on the house and building a studio for me to work in this winter. The plan is to focus more time on the webinars and teaching in general and less time doing commissions and retail.

As for living in Nova Scotia it has good and bad sides like most things. We had a mild winter with very little snow but we were glad the house came with six cords of firewood which kept the house very cozy in-spite of no insulation. We got get a great deal on the place because it was full of junk and very dirty. It took a lot of elbow grease but we are making progress and it does feel good to wake up in our own house after the last fifteen years of renting. By building a studio on my own property I will finally lower my day to day over head considerably and more importantly live with the work I love and spend more time with the family. The basement of our house will serve well as a filming studio for the webinars and we have a small shop that we will rebuild into a production studio. The glass can be stored outside on racks and I should have room for a small sculpture garden as well.