Walking Buddy Wanda is a goddess-send.

We’ve been walking together for years, and have been friends for years before that.

Without our multiple walks a week during the pandemic, I’m sure I would have turned into a potato by now.

More than that, I don’t know if I would have ever started this project without her. 

We are both creatives with jobs in the nonprofit sector. We walk and talk about art, work, life, spirit. We help each other be more effective anti-racists. We help each other be more loving humans. We make each other laugh and lift each other up.

A year ago, when I was kicking around the idea for this project, she was the first person I mentioned it to. It was her enthusiastic response that encouraged me to forge ahead.

Each week, if my ideas haven’t quite solidified, talking with Wanda always helps bring me focus.

If you’re keeping up with my progress—thank you!—you know that I’ve been debating with my Inner Voices about the 52-week timeline I set for myself. The times I’ve needed to skip a week to deal with life and preserve my sanity, I figured I would just need to stretch out the timeline. So what if I can’t do 52 collages in 52 weeks? Who cares?

INNER PERFECTIONIST PRISCILLA: Ahem.

ME: Noted.

Recently, as Wanda and I were summiting one of our steeper hills, I was sharing with her how the end of the project feels so close and yet so far. I’m chomping at the bit to try something new, but I am committed to finishing what I set out to do. I’m still loving making art, but I’m also excited to complete this mission.

I told Wanda, maybe I just need to figure out how to do the absolute simplest designs. I don’t want to half-ass it, but I’m growing weary. 

She said, “The image that’s coming to me is of Mount Everest, how climbers approaching the summit start lightening their load. I don’t see you as half-assing. You’ve trekked all this way, and you’re learning how to lighten your load. You could do ten different collages of a circle in the middle of a blank background. Who’s to stop you?”

Only Inner Critic Ursula. 

ME: (Anticipates Ursula’s entrance. Pause. Pause. Sighs with relief.) 

Okay then, I’m lightening my load! And that’s why I decided to do FOUR collages this week. 

I know. But I really did take Wanda’s message to heart. 

She and I have walked this pandemic through a full cycle of seasons. It’s got me thinking about time and how warped it feels. Has it already been a whole year? Or has it been ten?  

So I thought, how about I warp time and cram four weeks into one? How about I create a tetraptych? Four collages designed to hang together creating one whole piece. Circles are hard, so instead, how about I stick with this theme of four?

• Winter Spring Summer Fall

• North South East West

• Earth Air Fire Water

• Midnight Dawn Midday Dusk

“North Spring Fire Dusk.” With a blank square in the middle for the Spirit part of us that exists beyond Earth’s wheel of time.

I bent a couple more of my own rules. Maybe I should call them habits. 

I didn’t read a word of these four New Yorker issues. Except for the cartoons. That was a huge time-saver. 

You won’t find the title words in this piece because the title came from my head. (I believe there’s only one other collage that doesn’t have the title words in it.)

One thing I learned this week—I am completely delusional about how long it takes me to create ANYTHING. Why I thought this tetraptych would be quick and easy, I’m not sure. 

But when I’m kvetching to Wanda about what an idiot I am to crouch on the floor over my collage until my body aches so much I can’t go to sleep, she’s there to remind me: “You’re not an idiot. You’re persistent and creative and conscientious.”

See? She’s a goddess-send. Actually, a goddess. Who reminds me of my own inner goddess.

THIS WEEK’S FOUR FEATURED CARTOONS

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