Part I

It's late afternoon on Sunday, I have been thinking about sitting down all week to write an entry. I actually missed writing last week because we were overwhelmed with the amount of work we needed to do to complete the studio. I would like to get moved in sometime this week. Maybe the idea that we could write once a week was an overly ambitious goal, time will tell? 

Friday night we went to see the play The Last Night of Ballyhoo at the Laurel Little Theatre. Yesterday was the Chili cook-off which we had planned on going to but ended up missing because we were working on installing a ceiling beam in the studio and lost track of time.

It’s been a long 7 months without a studio space and for an artist that can feel like an eternity. I think of an artist's studio as a sort of sanctuary, it's a place that in many ways is sacred for an artist.  7 months is a long time but in reality, we haven't had a moment where we were not busy with some sort of project.  In the interim, I tried to convert the laundry room into my studio, but that was short-lived as I could only work on smaller pieces which worked out to be ok as I did a couple of smaller commissions. I lost that space when we decided we were going to convert the back of the house into an Airbnb. I then moved to the corner of the living room which I protested doing as it meant rearranging the furniture and disturbing the design and layout and would junk the place up. This didn't last long either as the light was just not right and I felt boxed into the corner of the room. Sometime during the renovation on the back of the house, we decided that the garage would be an ideal place for a studio, or so we thought.  We went through a long process of having numerous contractors look at the space.  Most of them said it would be best to pull it down and start again.  Also, none of them seemed interested or they said that maybe they could start construction the following spring?  Years of neglect and also the fact that it had never been properly constructed in the first place left it in pretty bad shape but it still had a lot of great potential and sat on a  big slab of concrete which would be perfect for a studio space.  When it rained we would collect buckets of water, so the roof also needed to be replaced as well as some of the siding. So it was either tear it down or try to save it.  We looked into the idea of using a shipping container, there are also kits you can buy, but in the end we decided to go with saving it. There was something about keeping the old building that appealed to me, maybe its history? I always love to salvage when ever possible.  I also loved the idea of designing a space for a studio, something that was catered to me, big and open with Windows and the perfect kind of lighting. All my life I have had makeshift studios.  In jersey city I worked in what was meant to be a dining room, I worked there for more years than I care to remember, but I always made it work, because that's what you do as an artist, you make do, but this time I'm getting what I want, at least mostly. I think at my age I deserve it.  

 So we finally were lucky enough to finally find someone who was willing to do the work and seemed enthusiastic about the idea, his name is Kris and he goes to the same church that we attend.  So the process has begun, We are excited to see the transformation and will be thankful to get some of my studios supplied out of our home, they have been cluttering up the space for far too long.