Somehow I have let almost four months slip by without an update here: - the search bots will have assumed I've died, and the Google ranking has probably collapsed, but sometimes real life is more pressing than an online presence. In this time, I spent a busy month as artist in residence in medieval Gmuend, enjoying the cavernous studio space, meeting many interesting folks, both locals and tourists, and making spectacular bloomers in my broken German. Several icons went home with tourist buyers, and several birds and beasts were bought or commissioned locally. During the time there, I made some miniatures for an upcoming exhibition and finally finished my latest Icon of the Nativity, which gratifyingly was scooped up off the desk while it was still drying and taken to Germany. I will save the picture for my Advent post.