Before and After

This was the wall in the open garage where I had been working about 6-8 months out of the year when it wasn't too hot or too cold.

This is the enclosed space now. It's insulated on top and the side and is heated with a kerosene heater which does a pretty good job. Plus the concrete wall gets full winter sunlight and is a passive solar heat source. Bonus!

The wall that was my original space. There's still some things to make and hang and adjust but I'm working in it already. First project was throwing bowls for the Richmond Empty Bowls Project 2010.

Studio Pix

It's already cluttered :)

Pretty Much Done

There's some insulating and shelves and fiddly bits to deal with but the bottom line is that I'm mostly all in and already working on several projects, including gearing up for a new body of work next year, both sculptural and functional. Also getting ready for the holidays on a personal level. I had hoped to have more items for sale this year but with the renovations going on, that didn't pan out. However, it does leave me with no impediments and/or obstacles for next year so I have lots of work ahead of me.

I look at this and love it and think, already, I need more space!

I would show you pix but Blogger isn't letting me right now. I don't know why. I'll edit in the near future.

Sponge

Time drags on and so do the details of finishing up the move into the studio. We've completed the main electric and hanging shelves, boxes and blinds. I've moved most of my art materials into the studio and already, I need more space. Not surprising. I am a bit overwhelmed as I've moved and started to rearrange items like foam, string, rubber, stamps, gourds, beads, findings, stencils, bats, banding wheels, reclaimed clay, metal wire, sheet metal, glaze containers, glues, hooks, sketchbooks, colored pencils, acrylic paints, glass ornaments, fabric dyes, reference books, old issues of Ceramics Monthly and Metalsmith, American Style and Art Calendar and boxes of miscellaneous items. Years of collecting things for future use and now the time is here. Now. Or soon to be now. Finally. I almost started crying as we were hanging the last of the storage shelves and I started to arrange the drawers. I know I'll beat myself up for not producing enough initially and I'm sure I'll feel like the pace is glacially slow but I'm in the midst of a huge transition for me. I'm barely aware of it except for those small moments when I can look back and see what's changed.

I've been watching some David Attenborough on satellite recently. Focusing on evolution and staring with simple organisms. Single cell and the next step, sponges. I'm fascinated with the changes of evolution, the organisms that started us and yet continue to thrive. The branches that form to allow change to happen, new organisms to rise, new possibilities, some successful, some not. Fractals, patterns, randomness and adaptation. Fluidity, diversion, natural selection, new branches, and dead ends. The time it has taken to get us to the present moment has been long. We think we're a thriving branch. What if, evolutionarily speaking, we're actually a dead end? We'll never be able to tell until the change is upon us.

At one point, I think I convinced myself that I had given up on my fine art voice and it had been replaced by graphic design, a commercial art voice. And yet I kept the boxes of pastels, the paper samples, the block stamps and beads. Just in case. If you have a nagging feeling about yourself, listen carefully. Play the hunch. Analyze your surroundings, your environment. It's shaping who you are and one never knows where you're headed next.

The Big Move... delayed

Well, I was hoping to start off this new blog with news that I was finally moved into my new studio and working away like a little elf, chipmunk, you name it. Alas, things move sloooooowly and we still have to put up shelves to get stuff off the floor and off the porch. And unfortunately for me, I'm one of those people that gets cold hands and feet when the temps drop below 75°F. Currently, today in Estill County, it's in the 40's. I am not a happy camper. When my hands get cold, I cease to work and spend most of my time leaning on a heater. In fact, I used to do work in my kitchen with a roaring fire going in the wood stove until it was hot enough that I was in a t-shirt!

In this new space, the area will be insulated and caulked and I will have a large kerosene heater which should warm up the space nicely. In theory. Eventually. Once I get going. In the mean time, I have tried doing more sketches but I'm about sketched out and more anxious to work.

Good news is that there is a wood firing at a potter friend of mine next week so even if I don't have any pieces to put in there (not as big a fan of the wood fire effect on my work right now), I will be participating and that's always a fun thing!

So, inaugural post. I will try and get some scans of sketches up and an updated image of the studio at some point. Mazel Tov and Namaste, y'all.