No, I'm not going to offer excuses for the lateness, just apologies. Several unforeseen circumstances, yadda yadda yadda. But regardless of the sporadic nature of these updates, I can assure you of this: Updates will come.

   And by the way, just to clear up a few rumors that I've heard going around: No, I was not fired. No, I am not leaving GIA for any reason. If all goes as planned, in a few weeks, it'll be back to a regular schedule here in SA, at least weekly -- if not bi-weekly like in the good old days. And one of the first things I intend to do is get all the archives in working order, because I know they're a bit jumbled now.

   However, the next few weeks will still be a bit difficult, especially with the absence of Arpad, who was organizing our artist profile pages, for what looks like pretty much the entire summer. For the time being, any contributor who wants to create, modify, or update an artist profile, please send the information/image to profiles@thegia.com.

   Now that all the announcements have been made... aw heck, what can I say about nearly an entire month's worth of artwork? You may have had to wait quite some time to see it, but it's no less pretty. ;)

   -- Andrea Hartmann