Back in the old days, there was a big studio in the country
filled with sunlight and beautiful shelves teeming with art supplies, books,
magazines, fabric and recycled materials waiting to become some kind of art. It
was even pretty well organized. There was a sink for messy projects, a nice Mac
computer, scanner and camera. Nearby there was a lovely deck for working
outdoors in the sunshine, and I could experiment with—wearing a mask of
course—some of the really smelly products.
Life changed, and now we’re in a midtown New York apartment,
and my space is limited. Accordingly, my design scale has been downsized too. A
chronic shoulder problem made me shift from art quilting to working on
paper—using soft supplies like paint, stamps and stencils. Repetitive
stitching, free-motion quilting and cutting through layers of fabric and
batting with a rotary cutter are out of the question. And of course using
NevrDull or CitraSolv and melting painted Tyvek is out of the question.
I have become a pretty faithful art journalist. I’ve been
making, and working in, these really cool art journals that I learned about in
a Kelly Kilmer class. They have accordion fold signature pages, so a lot of
artwork can be packed into a little book. Best of all, they don’t take up much
space.
I also make and trade ATCs and other small paper items. My
closet and shelves have clothes and accessories, but only the things I really
use…the iffy items…have been purged to make way for art supplies.
Did I mention I am also working 9-5, five days a week…which
is really 8 to 6 when you figure in travel time? I really like my job, it is
creative and fun, but of course I live for my personal art time on evenings and
weekends. I have even started painting on my lunch hour, which creates a nice
break in the day. On the weekends, the half-round table in the
living/dining/office room become my little studio space.
The homage to Diebenkorn journal page made me think about
someday having a big studio again and how magical it would be to work on huge
canvases. The “Ugly” page used up some ephemera that was just…ugly…but somehow
it worked, and made me realize the ugly is a relative term. The Victorian
vintage winged angel was leftover from making ATCs a few weeks ago. But it made
me wonder…is someone/something listening to our prayers, watching over us? On
the last journal page I used scraps from the ephemera box, and added a royalty
free Dover clip art image that I printed and transferred with the packing tape
method.
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