But it is still September, and if we hurry, we have just enough time to take a deep breath, and publish. So here is your September issue in all its glory. It does not remotely resemble what we had “planned” (that will teach us to try planning!) Rather, it took on a life of its own, and we just followed it to its conclusion.

This issue witnesses the birth (rebirth) of a great idea, and the way it turned into other great ideas, and even a brand new product line that will expand our artistic horizons so exponentially (whew!), that we felt it deserved to be introduced in a thorough fashion. We have our fingers crossed that you “get” the possibilities and use them to burst out of any skin that tries to contain your artistic potential. See if you can figure out which article we are referring to.

You will meet a couple of our dear friends in this issue - both of them extreme innovators. If you are not familiar with the work of Sherrill Kahn, you are in for a visual delight, and we make a “Studio Stop” to visit Sue Denniston, a Santa Fe artist whose enthusiasm for art, life, and fun is thoroughly infectious.

We love the great email you send! And from the standpoint of appreciating creativity, we really like the creative ways you find to express your enthusiasm within the emotional limits of email. You are a very clever lot! Thank you for your support - it is literally the fuel that keeps this endeavor going. When our eyes are crossed, pupils pinwheeled, and we can’t stand the thought of one more html <tag>, we read some mail and get re-energized, remembering why we are doing this.

Because it is traditional for magazines to print their negative feedback as well, I will tell you that since our beginning, we have had seven complaints. All the same thing: “Why can’t we just skip around and read what we want?” I guess these folks are used to walking up to a newstand, poking the cover of a magazine, and having the article jump out. From the emotional “tone” of those emails, we could pick up that they don’t have the time or patience to get anything from this magazine anyway, and that is a shame. To gain from this publication, you must be paying attention. Had they been paying attention, they would have realized that once they got to the end of the first article, they could have used the BackTracks button and the BackTracks index to do what they wanted to do anyway. You can too.

But we don’t want you to do that. We promise you will miss something. The more this publication expands, the more we see that the articles inter-relate. Something mentioned in one article may be referenced or built upon in the next - or the one after that. Hopefully, the whole will come together as a body of knowledge that will greatly expand your artistic possibilities. Many of you used the word “devour” when describing your experience with the issues. Our dictionary defines that as “to take in eagerly”. Nothing could please us more.

Til next time, be happy and be well.

jessica