Art block, Life block

Since the start of the year, I've found myself in the midst of an artistic moment of change.  New York, being the unforgiving aggressive city that it is, isn't the best place to have a second to reflect or figure things out. 

My 2014 ended after quitting my job, going to an AMAZING artist residency, then working for around 70 days straight at an exhausting retail gig that ended in early January.  Then I treated myself to a week-long trip to Puerto Rico. 

These are all great things. Really, really great.  But now, I've found myself in a mirror of 2012 --unemployed-ish and artistically stuck -- just slightly older and slightly less tolerant of shitty work of both the artistic and money-making kind.  There will always be moments like this in my life, I'm pretty aware of that now, but the good thing is that now I might have the tools to make the best of it. 

I've been running after any and all interests that I have.  No plan, just diving blindly: 

 Sculpted a whale bulla (ear bone), bought some calcite and optical spar crystals, and a painted sketch of crystals in the background. 

 Fossils (Megladon teeth, a Trilobite, some weird oceanic things), a U.S. map with the Mississippi River marked, and a sketch of the whale ear bone. 

Then I bought laser pointers:

 Oooo, look at that purple laser turn green in the calcite!

It's hard to see, but this green laser turns orange. They change to their complimentary color, I suppose.

Red stays red, though.

Will this lead somewhere? Who knows...