One Week to Go!
Tomorrow someone else will be moving into my now former studio. The day after that is the last open house for the gallery, the final day for gathering artists and making sales. The day after that we start packing clothes, dishes, and bringing up anything that remains, cramming them into the dining room and lower gallery level to save on the movers' hourly rate. One week from today we start moving into our new place. And after that the buyers will start moving in here.
The past few days have been full of goodbyes to people, and while it is sorta sad, it's mostly a happy time for us. There are so many things that can go wrong with this entire deal, and yet I'm not bothered by it, the conviction that we are doing the right thing is so strong.
I've been feeling quite a bit better lately, at least in terms of ability to focus. It's not adrenaline. It's more a sense of command of my situation. People who do not have physical limitations tend to think only in terms of mental or emotional limitations. Believe me, the physical ones can indeed impact mental acuity and one's state of mind. In my case, the knowledge that I am going into a situation much more suited to me physically and temperamentally has taken away that sense of always trying to catch up or stay on top of everything. I am going to be functioning at what is my actual optimum level instead of trying to call on inner resources to operate higher than that. I can do a lot of things, but it doesn't mean that I should do them. I can deal with people, artists, customers, the public at large, but it is technically difficult and exhausting for me as a deaf person, and stressful for me as someone who greatly prefers to work alone. Likewise, this big house and garden with it's stairs and hills, and the gallery with its own physical demands has become increasingly daunting for my knees and feet and hands and neck. As much as I love it, it's getting the best of me.
The age/time factor is another element: the driving distance to my parents' house isn't going to get any shorter the older any of us get. It will take a lot off my mind. Mom and Dad seem almost as excited about our move as we are. The past week was full of sunny, 60 degree days, and they went out and prepped one of the storage bins on the farm for any extra stuff I don't don't have room for in the new house, and are loaning us the pickup truck to haul my table saw and assortment of lumber and tools and such.
Yesterday I went through several boxes of old files, covering the early days after I moved here, and client files from when I first started my landscape design business. Saw all the names and the drawings and expenses. Some names made me smile with fondness. Others made me shudder or roll my eyes. Then I chucked them all. Ancient history. Reduced inventory of baggage. I've still got the original blueprints, but the rest is irrelevant.
Speaking of irrelevancy, it's time to update the very nature of this blog. For the past year, it's been a great tool for me, adding another dimension to my studio life and helping me to chart my progress, particularly the mental progress. Now, even in spite of the chaos and inaccessibility of art materials and time, the artist mindset is still very much there and very excited about the circumstantial improvements and their impact on my working life. The blog doesn't need to be quite so inward-looking or exclusively from my point of view. To this end, I am inviting other women artists to become members of this blog and to post their own issues, experiences, and thoughts. Steve has offered to handle the technical side of things, thank heavens. Who knows where this will all lead?
The past few days have been full of goodbyes to people, and while it is sorta sad, it's mostly a happy time for us. There are so many things that can go wrong with this entire deal, and yet I'm not bothered by it, the conviction that we are doing the right thing is so strong.
I've been feeling quite a bit better lately, at least in terms of ability to focus. It's not adrenaline. It's more a sense of command of my situation. People who do not have physical limitations tend to think only in terms of mental or emotional limitations. Believe me, the physical ones can indeed impact mental acuity and one's state of mind. In my case, the knowledge that I am going into a situation much more suited to me physically and temperamentally has taken away that sense of always trying to catch up or stay on top of everything. I am going to be functioning at what is my actual optimum level instead of trying to call on inner resources to operate higher than that. I can do a lot of things, but it doesn't mean that I should do them. I can deal with people, artists, customers, the public at large, but it is technically difficult and exhausting for me as a deaf person, and stressful for me as someone who greatly prefers to work alone. Likewise, this big house and garden with it's stairs and hills, and the gallery with its own physical demands has become increasingly daunting for my knees and feet and hands and neck. As much as I love it, it's getting the best of me.
The age/time factor is another element: the driving distance to my parents' house isn't going to get any shorter the older any of us get. It will take a lot off my mind. Mom and Dad seem almost as excited about our move as we are. The past week was full of sunny, 60 degree days, and they went out and prepped one of the storage bins on the farm for any extra stuff I don't don't have room for in the new house, and are loaning us the pickup truck to haul my table saw and assortment of lumber and tools and such.
Yesterday I went through several boxes of old files, covering the early days after I moved here, and client files from when I first started my landscape design business. Saw all the names and the drawings and expenses. Some names made me smile with fondness. Others made me shudder or roll my eyes. Then I chucked them all. Ancient history. Reduced inventory of baggage. I've still got the original blueprints, but the rest is irrelevant.
Speaking of irrelevancy, it's time to update the very nature of this blog. For the past year, it's been a great tool for me, adding another dimension to my studio life and helping me to chart my progress, particularly the mental progress. Now, even in spite of the chaos and inaccessibility of art materials and time, the artist mindset is still very much there and very excited about the circumstantial improvements and their impact on my working life. The blog doesn't need to be quite so inward-looking or exclusively from my point of view. To this end, I am inviting other women artists to become members of this blog and to post their own issues, experiences, and thoughts. Steve has offered to handle the technical side of things, thank heavens. Who knows where this will all lead?
posted by meg at 11:04 AM
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