"The way to get your house clean is to invite visitors." Bertha Tice Hughes, my grandmother
A call for a meeting place had me saying "Yes, I'll host," thinking it would take me an hour to clear the studio tables. It took me all day Sunday, with a few distractions like fixing the label maker to print. Truth was, it was a job that long needed doing, sorting and finding a home for the myriad stacks of art related litter. Turns out our small group never made it to the studio, but met in the living room instead.
Two years ago, my studio was an abandoned man-cave, with really bad paneling, leatherette walls and a place for a pool table. I worked hard that spring to set major transformation into action, turning it, with much help, into a tranquil space that looks out into a spacious yard. And I moved. From deep in the country to town. First a Pod to store everything that wouldn't be in the old house during the six months we were on the market. Then think sets of movers: heavy equipment movers, household furniture movers, and a one of those college town movers not up to, really, moving the contents of a studio. Not to mention the hillbilly load of last minute items my friends Stan and Buzz stashed into a rented cargo van. That one took all day; the one we ended up unloading in the dark.
Although I don't know where every single thing IS, I am able to function pretty well in my new spacious 1953 walkout basement studio. The room shown above looks out on a large back yard. It's sort of like sleeping in a new place for the first time, it seems strange, but slowly becomes comforting.