Bring in the new!

Transitions. Out with the old, in with the new. Standing on a precipice, ready to cross a threshold, but don\’t step timidly, LEAP!

Think about it. You step and expect to find solid ground, and you\’re thrown off balance and begin to plummet when your foot is met with empty air. There is nothing pleasant in that experience.

But that\’s different than seeing the chasm ahead of you and knowing you have a choice, not to step and fall, but to leap, and even as you spring into the air, you perceive not the ground below, but the bank awaiting across the divide and you do the work to gather your strength and wits into you to land as best you\’re able, not below, but across, across! And even as you do that work, the unexpected takes place and angels catch you and carry you until you evolve into a being who can sprout wings and fly if necessary.

Welcome to 2015.

I\’m in the throes of moving on, packing up, hitting the road, Jack! As of January I will have quit the corporate world and devoted my full time and full attention to DougTennant.com, parent of DW Downtown and Gilda Shedstecker Presents! So the rookie gallery at 2nd April and the several-shows-a-year theatre troupe, having spent the last several years putting down roots, will start to leaf and vine and flower. And fruit! Can\’t forget the fruit.

It\’s kind of scary, but in a funhouse good way. If there is anything I\’ve gained from my time on this earth in the company of some of my Favorite People: life is short, and uncertain, and not to be lived foolishly. For me, it\’s foolish to live it from the side of the road in the shade watching the parade. When the saints go marching in, I want to STAR in that number! That\’s not to say one should rashly plunge without thought into the unknown. I\’ve been building our presence on Cleveland Avenue in the Canton Arts District since 2011, gaining allies and friends and partners and contacts. And I\’m not exactly wet behind the ears, having garnered vast experience in several professional guises paying attention to excruciating details and managing others and meeting impossible deadlines and cleaning up messes and preventing disasters. So I\’m not closing my eyes and blindly hoping for the best, timidly testing with a toe for solid ground.

I\’m so grateful for this journey, the friends and family I\’ve gained, the experiences I\’ve shared, the lessons learned, the challenges endured. It\’s humbling and exciting and breath-taking and so joyful. Thank you all!

I\’m LEAPING into 2015. Chances are you\’ll find me on Cleveland Avenue, and not in just my spare time. So come visit DW Downtown, the gallery space I share with Linda Alexander-Radak at 2nd April. Come see a Gilda Shedstecker Presents! show this year. I\’ll be there looking for you.

Happy new year!!