A MARS zine

For the past two years, and again this April, I will fly to MARS.  Not the planet, although that would be interesting to do, too.  No, this MARS is the Mountain Art Retreat Sleepover.  It's held in the Sierra mountains, above Grass Valley.  About 25 women haul their art supplies with them to this wonderful retreat area, a YMCA camp.  We set ourselves up at our space at a table and for 3 days we create art.  Or we just visit, laugh, eat, drink wine, laugh, eat some more, and then wander back to our spaces to create more art.  It's really, really fun.  As several of my friends there have said, "I'm spending time with my tribe."

I come back home feeling really refreshed, inspired, relaxed and ready to create more art.  I love MARS.  I so very much enjoy hanging out with these women I only first met two years ago and yet whom I feel I've known for a long, long time.

So this year Lindsay Ostrom asked us if we'd like to contribute a page to the MARS zine.  I said yes, although I've never even read a zine.  But I checked it out on Wikipedia:

A zine (pron.: /ˈziːn/ zeen; an abbreviation of fanzine, or magazine) is most commonly a small circulation self-published work of original and/or appropriated texts and images usually reproduced via photocopier. 

And I decided "I can do this."  And so I did.  Very fun and I look forward to seeing the finished zine.  Thanks to Lindsay for spearheading this process.