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Life is good.

Though I still have "issues" with my jaw and my shoulder brought on by cancer surgery in October, I'm feeling well and getting back to a somewhat "normal" life. I'm even working, creating a website for a client in East Texas, the first job I've had in a year with more to come, I'm sure.

This experience has given me a better understanding of my relationship to God, my family, and my friends. Lessons learned don't always stick but they do most of the time and I'm grateful for that. Of course, the ones I don't learn will just come around again at a later time to give me another opportunity to "get it." Right?

One of the particularly wonderful things that has occurred to me — among many — is an explosion of creative output during my healing process. So much so that two dear friends and I are planning an art show in September. Karen Frances and Paula Joyce, both of whom I know from the Dallas Tango community, are artists of a different stripe from me, and therein lies the alchemy for a truly exciting event.

Karen is a talented sculptor and a painter with a gift for capturing the female form; Paula's primary medium is fabric; her scarves and other hand-painted clothing are exquisite and her paintings are delightful; and I jump back and forth between photography and limited-edition digital paintings.

Karen lives in Fort Worth and has recently built separate studios for her sculpture and painting and a smaller building to house her kilns. What an amazing place! The buildings are finished and she's turned her attention to the grounds in preparation for the art show in September. This will be a terrific new home for the show which, we hope, will be an annual event.

We'll share more details as they become available to pique your interest enough that you'll make plans to join us in September for our inaugural art show. We'll put up a website where we'll post news about the show, the time, date, and location for the show, as well as a few samples of our work to whet your appetite. Your feedback and suggestions are always welcome. Please contact me with either.

God Bless all of you who have been so supportive over the past year during my difficulties with cancer. If it hadn't been for your prayers, I'd never have gotten through this and this art show would never have even occurred to me as a possibility. Now, all things are possible and I thank God — and you — for that.