This week in an art life
Making space and another chance to keep things going in the right direction
This morning, I was determined to start rolling back my recent habit of coming into the studio in the early afternoon. With the holidays over, it’s been past time to get back on track with my morning routines and getting out of the house earlier. I have a harder time getting up in the winter months, not wanting to face the cold, but it has to be done. I have a morning routine at home that takes up a certain amount of time: getting dressed, feeding the cats, scooping litter, refilling the water bowl, having something to eat, sometimes preparing the day’s studio meal, etc… can take up some time if I’m not moving that fast.
Anyway, I had a nearly perfect morning and managed to get out of the house within an hour.
One of the first things I do when I come into the studio is turn on the string lights up front before even turning on the overhead lights. I like easing into the work day and just having these lights on for a few minutes helps with that. I like the quiet, as well. In fact, I’ve not turned on any music as I’m typing this. Sometimes, even the things we love can get in the way of putting our thoughts together.
This week has been challenging. In my last post, I briefly mentioned an indoor mural project that I’m making a proposal for. That’s taken up most of my mental space as I’ve had to work my way through issues with Photoshop. I finally gave in and had someone else help out with the issue of placing my proposal images on a curved wall in a photograph of the space. I can be a little hard-headed at times when I’m a little out of my depth with certain skills. I wasted a lot of time banging my head against the wall before I asked for help. I hope I can release some of this stubbornness the next time.
The “kids” are back home
That’s me on Wednesday, buzzing around here and making room for paintings coming back to the studio…
The moments I’ve been somewhat dreading, but not really…but maybe a little finally arrived last week and yesterday. Works from two shows were returned to the studio and I couldn’t have more mixed feelings about it. I’m glad that everything is back and nothing bad happened to any of it while out in the world. On the other hand, I had hopes of some of it having been sold, finding new homes and not having to deal with it being here again. The “love you, you’ll always have a home here, but don’t come back…” feeling is real with art sometimes.
This is part of why I only make larger paintings for exhibitions. While I love working on big canvases in general, the realities of storage keeps my output in the say 9” x 12” to 48” x 48” range for my own needs. Anything bigger than that has to be for a specific exhibition. I’m incredibly grateful and lucky to have the space for these and others, but it sure would have been nice to send some of them on their way. There’s more opportunities for these to find new homes, so I’m staying positive.
Then and now
It was pretty cold yesterday and yes, I have heat but I’ve chosen to use as little as possible this winter. Keeping up with utilities here has been tight, so I’m shaving as much off of my heating bill as possible on those days when I can go without. I have a container full of winter studio clothes and I’d almost forgotten about my trusty Dickies coveralls. It was nice to be reminded of how warm they can be layered over everything else. As you can see from the photo caption above, I’ve had these for at least 18 and probably actually 20 years! This is the first time I’ve used them since around 2015, but it’s nice that they’re here.
The other morning, I caught the bus at my usual stop, but it turned off from the route about three block into the ride. I looked towards the front and realized that I hadn’t looked at the bus number out front and this was a detoured bus from another route that runs four blocks west of where I catch my bus.
It was fine. I made the most of it and got off on Market Street where I could walk to catch my regular bus and make a couple of stops along the way. The sun was low in the southwestern part of the sky, making these gridded reflections from the Wells Fargo building on my side onto the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History across the street. Too good to pass up getting a shot of this.
Exit
Thanks for reading, see you next week and have a great weekend!
Hi Tim,
You had posted that a studio was available at JOG, Fl 2. I had left my email for you to contact me about the details. I wasn't sure it went through. jjacobson47@gmail.com. Thanks!
P.S. I love to hear about & see your work! Judith
Just so refreshing to see. Thank you for sharing 💙