this is really just a part 2 to my last post, as here we are mid july, still the middle of summer, though honestly the daily afternoon rains have been keeping the temperatures down so it hasn’t felt too oppressive yet. cvp is over and i did end up joining the academy, at least for a few months, so i can watch some of the new interviews and masterclasses and maybe try out the studio again to see if i actually like painting with other people on camera. it’s a lot of money per month though and it’s been a slow summer pet biz-wise so not sure how long i can afford to stay in unless i start selling some work soon.
to that effect, i think i finally have all the copy finished for my updated website – have a look around and let me know what you think! and now my energy turns to working on the store. the thing that’s holding me back really is that in order to get things listed in my online store i have to take pictures of paintings that are ready to sell; i have shots of much of the older work but the newer stuff that i’m more excited about posting for sale i don’t. and it’s a whole day’s project to set my studio up with a white backdrop and multiple lights to take professional-looking well-lit pics of my art. so hopefully soon…
but in the meantime, i surprised myself and spent most of the last week/this weekend working on organizing, or should i say re-organizing, my studio space and in so doing, finding older works to go back to, to edit and get closer to finishing. my weird side hustle writing reviews for amazon got me a 25 shelf drying rack which is something i’ve always wanted; i’d been thinking moreso for the printmaking room of my house but actually ended up making good use of it for now at least as a means to hold all my 1/4” wood panels from two years of cvp. i’m leaving the top several shelves open to use for ongoing projects when i need somewhere to put things to dry that the cat won’t step on or rub against.
i bought a cheap elevated stand and bluetooth keyboard for my ipad, which is the computer device i use in my art studio. (i try to keep my laptop out of here since it’s a newer, much more expensive object and i’m worried about getting paint and sanding dust in it; the ipad was a refurb and is now 7 years old.) but it makes my space much easier to maintain and work around having the ipad up off the surface and having a keyboard i can tuck away when not in use, or use from my chair or across the room.
i also repurposed a small coat closet that had jackets i hadn’t looked at in 10 years, that was tucked behind the bifold doors. i ditched all the jackets and other crap that was in it as most had mold on it and nothing fit anyways, and repurposed a small bookshelf i’d had in the kitchen as shelving and now all my retro thrift store books that i use for collage, my journals and sketchbooks, tools, and random bits from nita’s house that i saved are all organized and up off the floor.
lastly, i build a table out of a slab of wood i’d been carrying around since the early 90s that julie tweeter had made me for a turntable platform in my house, when i was teaching myself how to dj. it’s basically a chunk of a solid door that she cut down and then finished off the sides into a beautiful shelf with a smooth surface. it’s heavy as fuck and though i’ve used it over the years on top of my record crates for its original purpose, in recent years it’s just been stored in the closet in my studio room. suddenly i realized it’s the perfect size to fit into that same closet as a shelf, but since it’s too heavy to mount on the wall, i remembered i had some old ikea metal table legs from a wood table that warped years ago stored in the shed. they were perfect for this project and made for a nice sturdy table that fits tightly into this recessed closet. so now the closet stores all my unused canvases and wood panels below the table, and my collage bin and some in-process mixed media pieces are on top of the table. again, getting stuff up off the floor, which makes the tiny studio feel more spacious and less cluttered. which helps my brain feel less overwhelmed when i’m in here.
today i actually picked up two old mixed media canvases i’d begun last summer after cvp but never finished. one is very close to being done and i’m more or less happy with it; the other still needs work. i can’t quite get the composition right. but they were part of a series so i’m trying hard to finish them both so i have 4 complete in the series. (i started two others but never got far on them so might abandon those.) i also picked up a few smaller unfinished works and added some layers. it feels good to go back to unfinished stuff that’s been staring at me for almost a year and finally have some breakthroughs on what needs to happen to move them along.
ok enough for this update. i’m gonna get back to painting. but just wanted to check in and pat myself on the back for finding more creative ways to configure this 10’x11’ room and my mountain of art supplies and half-finished work. lol hope y’all are having a good summer.
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