May 25, 2009 – I can scarcely believe a month has gone by since I last posted anything to DaDane of DaWeek. Mea culpa. It took about 2 weeks to "recover my balance" after our trip to China; after that I was quite busy getting ready for Germany. We arrived in Delmenhorst exactly one week ago. We will be living and working at HWK until October 1, same as last year. All is well... I love it here and I'm looking forward to the next 4 months.

In other news, Louise Peterson managed to visit us twice this Spring while she was in South Carolina. Louise was Sculptor in Residence at Brookgreen Gardens from April 19 to May 3. During that time she produced several pieces; she also taught a 5 day sculpture workshop, Modeling the Dog, and she was (is) a featured artist in Brookgreen's prestigious Five Masters: Selected Works by Coker Master Sculptors exhibition from April 11 to June 14. Louise stayed with us at the beginning and end of her travels. I drove up to Brookgreen during her residency to spend some additional time with her there, since it is such a wonderful place. Below is a photo of Louise at work and some of the animals that live at Brookgreen:

Louise was smitten by the mute swans. Since I've owned Mutes myself, I found the wild turkeys more fascinating. I suppose that's because I was less familiar with them. Ditto for the fox squirrels. Brookgreen is home to a very large population of fox squirrels. Where I live (just 3 hours down the road) we're lucky to see just one a year. More to follow...