The More it Snows...

Happy Winter Solstice! It's twenty minutes before sunset but still fairly bright outside after a sunny, blue-skies day. We bundled up and took a walk along the beach. It's hard to believe that the beach looks like frozen February on the first day of winter.

We had the Holiday Open House and Open Studio for the gallery on Sunday afternoon. For some reason my heart just wasn't in it. We got through it in the end, but we were both somewhat depressed and tired. But by Tuesday I was back on form and regained my focus.

So here I am, back in the studio, and planning out my next moves. I've subscribed to the Art Deadlines newsletter, I'll be participating in the January Novel Writing Month (inspired by NaNoWriMo), and I'm about to start on a new set of paintings. It's great to not have to worry about the gallery for a while.

Gettting Serious

I can't believe it's been 2 1/2 weeks since I last posted--where did the time go? I am glad to say that I have been getting some studio time in, and have quite a few pastel and watercolor crayon drawings to show for it. I've been battling a chest cold, as well, which seems to be on the wane now. The gallery and website business accounts have been updated and reconciled, and Steve has updated and redesigned the gallery and Art Fair websites. We had a long talk about the 2006 Art Fair and made several work- and stress-reducing decisions, especially those involving our own booth and artwork.

I also finished setting up the storage room. This required installing several sections of coated-wire shelving at a little above mid-height so that there was double the stacking area for our paintings and off-the floor storage for others' artwork which is not currently on display in the gallery. This room is the former apartment bedroom. We ripped out the grotty carpeting, left the floor bare, and opened up the big closet for storing framing supplies and spare gallery shelving, etc.

Two things spurred this project: I needed to get at our supply of masonite panels, which was inaccessible thanks to so much other stuff piled in front of it, and we are having our Holiday Open House for the gallery on Sunday--and opening the studio and storage room to the public, as well. We used to do Open Studios quite frequently in the days before the gallery, and they were fun and casual and often resulted in good sales. People around here like that sort of thing, as opposed to overly formal gatherings.

There's nothing like being frugal. The shelving I installed was saved from remodeling projects--some were the shelves in my old kitchen, and the great big one was the closet shelf in the apartment which later became the gallery. I am very glad I save things! Likewise saving masonite, since I came across several hardwood frames marked down to $8 each one day--they are structurally sound but have surface scratches and dings. By cutting masonite to fit, I now have three 24 x 36 and one 20 x 26 future paintings with frames painted as part of the artwork for less than decent canvases of the same size.

Cutting masonite used to be such a hassle, as I had to do it with either a rickety circular saw or a saber saw. Gripping the saw for long lengths of cutting kills my hands and doesn't produce very nice cuts. Over the summer, though, we spotted a Craftsman table saw at a nearby garage sale for $35. The thing has been a godsend. There's just enough room in the shed to use it--and now that I've got my studio back, it's a very short walk to use it, with no stairs or hills to negotiate. If anyone had seen me yesterday afternoon, they would have seen a woman in a grey hooded sweatshirt and tan barn coat carrying cuts of masonite and grinning like a little kid who hit the jackpot under the Christmas tree.

Speaking of Christmas, that's the one thing I haven't spent much time on, at least not for me. At Thanksgiving dinner, my entire family ganged up on me and told me, "No More Projects!" I heartily agreed, and we laughed about my needing a Patch for my addiction to Big Domestic Projects. As the days went by, a time I am normally Doing the House for Christmas in a big way, Project-Style--outdoor lights in the crabapple trees, lighted garlands around the windows and doorways, and lighted garlands around all the indoor windows and doorways and multiple Christmas trees, plus the traditional baking and making up food gifts for friends and neighbors, and designing, printing, and sending out cards--I found myself uncharacteristically detached from the entire thing. My heart and brain both got with the No More Projects program.

Now this is not a bad thing. It's part of the same facing of reality that made us decide to scale back on the gallery openings. The weather turned very cold and snowy, I had a chest cold, and if I had any energy at all, it was going to be spent in the studio. And that was that. The results: lights around the potted spiral topiaries which flank the front door, and a fake evergreen spray with a tacky "Merry Christmas" light on it (which I made last year and saved), which took all of 10-15 minutes to set up, no ladders or frostbite required. Indoors I put up one big tree with a lot of lights, including a new bright cheerful lighted star topper I found for $1 at a resale shop, and just one box of red ornaments; a set of three small charliebrown trees, unlit and undecorated, but which are still cool grouped together; one big pinecone wreath in the dining room; a Christmas tablecloth on the big table; a small red basket in the foyer; three Santa Claus items handed down in my family, and our Christmas snowman coffee mugs. No cards or anything else. All of this took about 6 hours, and a minimum of dragging crap up and down the stairs, which means when it comes down after New Year's it won't be a big deal, either. Whew!

Friends are invited to the Open House, and I've made my giant batch of Chex Mix with Steve's help, and will have easy to make food and beverages for that event. It's festive and it's enough. We haven't done our Christmas shopping yet, but hope to do that tomorrow, and will be keeping the list to immediate family and our friends who have been doing the food for the openings. As the architect said: Less is More.