Moon Mami Writes

So, I closed down my Ning art community LiberatedMuse and maintain just the Facebook, Twitter and Blogger sites for Liberated Muse. The Ning network was started in 2008 with the intent for folks to network, post in forums, blogs, etc. and create relationships on-line. What was happening, and its a good thing, was that folks were coming to the events and networking and linking up, but not so visibly online. So, to save myself work (and money) I decided to just focus on the events, getting the word out about opportunities and such via micro-blogging and blogs and conserve my energy to focus more on my own art. Focusing on me takes some getting used to. As much as I declare I'm going to focus on developing my own art skills, its been pretty hard putting it into practice. This is particularly true when it comes to doing work with other people. I feel like somehow I always wind up in a position where I'm either in charge, responsible for details that take away from focusing on my ...

( In photo: Khari creating an art project at the 2009 Artomatic in DC) The financial woes of the world are in every crevice we look now. Natural disasters like Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti does nothing to ease the pain. For those of us who haven't endured nearly half of the trauma the people of Haiti are experiencing right now, it still is a shaky time where it feels like you're walking on unstable ground. At my daughter's school that we pay tuition for, I learned that private schools may be feeling "empty-pockets" syndrome even worse than many public schools. When I learned that the principal of my daughter's school was coming out of pocket to buy afternoon snacks and for other school materials on a regular basis, I decided to volunteer to be a lead parent and try and garner donations for snacks from parents who could contribute. I started it off by purchasing a box of oranges. The next day, my daughter told me that one of her classmates is no longer at...