Now that my Open Studio is behind me and I’m reassembling my painting space, I’m starting to realize what a good job we did cleaning up. Maybe even too good.
During the event, many people surprised me by asking where I actually painted – and we were standing right in my studio. That’s probably because my studio (our former living room) looked like this after taking out a few easels and a table, among other things.
They probably just knew an artist studio couldn’t possibly be this neat all the time! My goal was to make it feel like a studio with a gallery space (although I’ve never been to a gallery with brown walls.)
To my dismay, all my stuff is steadily creeping back into the room, day by day, table by table, box by box. It’s starting to look like it did in the weeks before the Open Studio. Tidying guru Marie Kondo would definitely not approve, and neither do I.
First came the TV table which had morphed into a front hall sign-in table for a week. Then came several boxes with canvases and panels. And my neatly lined up paints… well, they don’t look like that any more.
I’m finally getting ready to take down my staircase display. Friday night before the Open Studio, Bonnie took the initiative to fine-tune it, with a physical agility that I can only envy. She really stepped up when I was getting tired and a bit discouraged with my progress.
Bonnie had a right to be proud of her handiwork. Lots of chocolate here for you chocoholics.
I played with all my little panels and drawings for longer than I care to admit, until I came up with this arrangement. Good thing I’m not actively playing the piano any more so this can stay put.
A week before the event, I realized I didn’t have any work-in-progress to show. So I started applying the oil paint to the sketch of my next vending painting. While I didn’t get as far as I would have liked, it was enough to show the process that I go through with vending machine paintings, starting with a detailed sketch, the logos, and the dark background early on to let the bright colors really pop.
I also began a 16 x 20 inch macarons painting on wood panel, which is what I’ll go back to this weekend.
Since the Open Studio date was a few weeks earlier than usual and the weather was cool, I couldn’t plant flowers this year. In fact, we had many April nights with frost warnings so we’re still flowerless the first week in May. Jay brought the coat rack up from the basement this year and people actually used it.
I did manage to get my haircut in plenty of time, and I liked how it came out. So I knew all was right with the world.
All in all, I was pretty happy with how the preparations went this year.
There is, however, no reason to reinvent the wheel every year. As soon as I finish this blog post, I am going to start a behind the scenes Open Studio To Do List and file it away for 2017, timetable and all. Anything to reduce stress is a good thing.
The more organized I am behind the scenes, the more time I’ll have to paint. And maybe, just maybe, the memory of how much I have been enjoying a pristine studio space will motivate me to make permanent changes in my artistic life. Stay tuned.
