Hey friends, just doing a quick update now that things are stabilizing and I'm slowly catching up on my hugely increased workload over the past week or two.

As the realization that things would be getting quite bad here in the US sooner and not later sunk in just over a week and a half ago, I got squared away on remaining grocery and RX needs and we dove into getting as much food prep done as possible up front. Since then, I've spent most of my time getting Jonathan and I's sales up and running and promoted, and just a bunch of other odds and ends that needed taking care of.

We started quarantine on Sunday, and plan on keeping that up as tightly as possible for as long as need be. Seeing the degree to which people are not taking this seriously is distressing, to say the least, but we've been trying to focus on keeping on top of what we can do. Staying home and contributing to flattening the curve is one of those things. We also did a live Youtube broadcast a couple of nights ago to offer some intro advice to those who are finding themselves needing to cook with limited means for the first time, and to answer questions about the subject.

But we also just can't afford to get sick. I have asthma, which puts me at higher risk, and the coronavirus isn't something to be taken lightly, even for the young. If you aren't practicing social distancing already, I urge you to do so as soon as you can secure the means.

As of late last fall, I had gotten into a local art show called the Santa Fe Society of Artists, which has a solid reputation as an outdoor weekendly art market. It usually runs mid Apr - mid Oct, so I was hurriedly preparing to create new paintings and secure the equipment I needed for that, so that I could hit the ground running and do as good of a job as possible. But I decided this past week to skip the first month and a half of shows, and will probably be skipping them until cases drop completely, for the health and safety of myself and others.

That's disappointing since I've really been looking forward to the show and to getting to bring my work to an entirely new audience, and we had hopes of it going well enough that we might be able to do one or two fewer conventions per year. But this does mean I'll have a lot more time to paint. Our second biggest show of the year, Biggest Little Fur Con, has already been postponed to October, and I expect Anthrocon to be cancelled as well-- some expert sources say that we may not see the peak of this thing until as late as July. This will make it hard for us to get by fiscally, but we've also never actually gotten to stay home for this long of a stretch without having to run off to a convention, and I think the break will be good for me in a lot of ways. I'm taking those perks where I can find them, at least!

To my patrons, thank you for your patience the last couple of weeks while I've been away from the easel and trying to get admin work done. Over the past year or so of having way more admin work to do than I used to, I've found that it's easier for me to get things done if I dedicate entire days to either admin or painting, instead of trying to switch modes during the day. Which, given everything going on, means that I haven't gotten to actually paint for nearly two weeks now.

At this point, I'm just trying to finish out the next week by getting ahead on admin work that's not due for a bit longer, so that I can go harder into painting without anything else on my mind once I do make that switch. It soothes my anxiety about these times to get these things checked off the list, I guess.

Together with Jonathan, our combined Patreon income almost covers rent. And if an order I placed through Azure Standard goes through most of the way, then between that and returns from my gardening in another couple of months, we won't really need to buy groceries for a while. The main concern is student loans, the car payments, continuing to support our friend until she can get employment, and miscellaneous expenses that might come up. Which does add up to a decent chunk per month, hence our working hard to try and get on top of things up front. We have a long way to go yet, but thanks to the support and generosity of our community, we are about 66% of the way to at least covering the income lost by BLFC being postponed.

All that said, we are hoping to make the best of these times. Jonathan and I already had long-term projects in the works, which we have plans to put out as Kickstarters later in the year. We may be even busier than usual right now while we try to build stability to weather us through. But on the other side of that, I look forward to slowing down. To enjoying the warming spring weather, to weeks where I can just spend time painting, to camping with our friends that we'll be sharing quarantine with.

This crisis is bringing out the worst and the best in people, side by side. I don't believe that people are unchangingly either good or bad. We have incredible potential in both directions, and that is in large portion determined by the circumstances of both the environment of our upbringing, and in how we choose to respond to that. We can at least choose how to respond. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the feeling of things falling apart, but know that the small good things matter more than ever, and they haven't gone away.

In the midst of some stress this evening, I found this interview to be a pragmatic but ultimately optimistically-hearted look at the situation we find ourselves in, if you find yourself in need of such a thing. If you want some company while in social distancing, I'd encourage you to come by the streams. Jonathan has been streaming an extra two days a week while working on the (increasingly impressive) Kid Pix Commissions, and it's been a lot of fun seeing people excited to come in and spend time bonding there.

And to bring us all back down to earth, here are a few moments of beauty from outdoors here in the desert, over the past few weeks, and here's a calming soundtrack mix I've been listening to on loop when I need to focus on work.

Thanks again, friends. Take care of yourselves and others, out there.

-S