Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Making It Work

As most of you know, I've been without a studio for a while.  Last summer, on July 1, we moved out of our old house (with a studio for me!) and into a new house.  We did a decent amount of renovation on the new house, and barely finished that before the baby came in mid-August.  For the next two months, it wasn't a problem that I didn't have a studio.  There was no time!  We were still trying to decorate and finish painting the house, plus with a new baby and a 3 yr old, there just wasn't a lot of extra time.  I worked a bit in my art journal when I could and just didn't worry about it too much.

But then I started to get the feeling.  You know what I mean - that FEELING - you want to create, make art, the soul needs it.  And I had no place to do it.  Insert grumpiness and frustrated feelings here.  We had plans to start building a studio for me, but we hadn't actually moved on that plan yet.

one table for clay, the other for sewing and journaling
On a whim, I agreed to do the American Craft Council show in March, thinking that the studio would (hopefully) be done in time for me to get some work made.  Time stretched on and on, with the studio still not being complete, and I kept thinking about this upcoming show (I was obviously insane when I made the decision to do that show)!!  So what I ended up doing was setting up a 4' folding table in the house, and that has been my studio since January.  I started making small sculptures at this table, and then setting them aside until one day when I had a kiln again.  My goal was to make 20 small pieces before the studio was made - I actually made 37!  It took so long for the studio to get built, that I just kept stockpiling my work, and I am so glad I did.  It was not too bad, working here in the house.  The two biggest challenges were the mess and keeping my 3 yr old out of my work. But ya know what?  It was better than not working at all.  I put my table by a window and I enjoyed the view while I worked and dreamed about my future studio.  It did make it easy to work in short bursts, like 30 minutes here and 30 minutes there, which would be harder to do if I had to walk out to the main studio.


So from all this, I learned that you don't have to have a fantastic space to work in.  It's lovely if you do, but I was able to make 37 little pieces just at my table.  On those super frustrating days, I just had to go look at my stash and I started to feel better about things :)


My show is almost here, and while I won't have a gazillion pieces made like I would like to have, I will be able to attend with what I have, and I'll be thankful to be there. AND, my studio is now pretty much completed, and I'll tell you all about that later :)


Have a great day everyone,
~Kelly



1 comment:

  1. Hi Kelly;
    I am certain your show will turn out fabulous and everyone will love your little sculptures. Good luck to you for your show.
    Hugs and blessings for your day.
    Kelly

    ReplyDelete