Online class release this week, 6 Nov 2026 | © Laurie Doctor
This past month has been a confluence of compelling impossible tasks, by which I mean that two things I love collided in time: the deadline for the exhibition was moved up a month earlier— so besides leaving me much less time to paint, my exhibition now coincided with my deadline for the online class. Both endeavors took all my heart, and had to be worked on at different times. Like Psyche, I was tasked with sorting an impossibly immense pile of seven kinds of seeds before nightfall. A friend of mine, also faced with an exhibition deadline said:
…struggling with balance is where I feel the most tension.
That is it. How do you have balance at those times when all at once more than one important thing demands the best of you? There is the additional complication of creative work— how the falling into it leaves you lost to the clock, obsessed and forgetful of other things. There’s the added difficulty that the maker’s work is never done.
If you’re not driven to an unrealistic standard of dedication, it may not be the path for you. So much of the artist’s work is about balance, so it’s ironic that this way of life leaves so little room for it.
— Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
And yet, I must make time for balance. I have had to invent balance interventions— this is the function of bells at the monastery. When the bell rings it is time to stop whatever it is that you are doing. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t finished, if you’re not ready, or if you’re tired. It’s time to stop. It’s time for a balance to super-focused work: a walk, meditation, prayer, garden, nap, reading or food. Most of my adult life I have lived alone, and this forced me to see the necessity of inventing interventions. Now it’s helpful to have a husband who insists it’s cocktail hour, but certainly not mandatory.
Time has also brought the gift of collaboration— the exhibition with the artist Martin Erspamer, OSB and the online class with the refined eye, talent and perseverance of Rachel Waters. Neither of these events would have happened without them.
The exhibition featuring my work and the work of Martin Erspamer, OSB will be up until Dec 29, 2026 at the Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Saint Meinrad, IN. Gallery hours are posted here.
Some of my pieces are below, and Brother Martin has many beautiful ceramic pieces and art works as well. My work is posted in my gallery.
A Bird Shows the Way | Oil on wood | 5” x 5”
Shown in a triptych below:
From left to right: Honored First is Your Yearning, Write Upon Tablets, A Bird Shows the Way | Oil & gold leaf on wood | 5” x 5”
Instructions (left) Encaustic on wood | Signature of All things (right) | Oil & gold leaf on wood | 5” x 5”
Page from the Lost Book | oil on canvas | 34” x 46”
Preview of my online class:
Video: © Rachel Waters Photography
How do you find balance? I’d love to hear from you.
Our featured artist this month is Rachel Waters. Her commercial photography, fine art, and love of story cross-pollinate to make her work something that makes you stop and look. Her willingness to persist with experiments makes her work alive and unique. There is beauty, elegance and mystery in the images she creates. She writes beautifully about her work and shows us more images here.
Il Passaggio | © Rachel Waters