MESSY!!!!!!!!!!!

I may have mentioned here before that I am a recovering hoarder.  I mean that seriously, in that I have had a severe hoarding issue that I attempted to cure cold turkey when I moved to my current apartment.  Basically, I got rid of 80% or more of what I owned and was brutally ruthless about it.  Left things that I regret not keeping, but overall I'm glad that I did it.

I still do have twinges though.  But that's not the point of this blog.

The great, wonderful, magnificent mixed media guru Seth Apter dared the readers of his blog, The Altered Page to show off their workspaces as they REALLY look.  In other words, messy, cluttered, humming with projects being done.  Here's his blog post today that shares his studio and links to others.

I have taken up the dare.  

Readers of this blog will recall that I have written about my attempts at organizing my working areas previously (here and here, and here too).  Often I do the organizing in an attempt to clear out mental cobwebs, and because quite frankly I can't work when things are way too chaotic.  

I think most artists experience this problem full on.  I don't know too many people who are able to have art-dedicated workspaces, so most of us have to cobble together something that sort of works, some of the time.  Since I live in a very small space, my whole apartment is my studio.  I just happen to live and sleep here.  (which becomes an issue too, when I want to work with things that may cause fumes - I don't really have an area where I can do this without bearing the consequences or causing difficulties)

But enough excuses. 

 I want to show you how messy my space has been - except for one area which is sort of neat, since I haven't used it in a while.  This is the painting area, in my bedroom.  Relatively neat since I haven't been painting much recently.

This, however, is an ever-present aggravation, the entrance to my bedroom, which has 2 tubs of collages on canvas because I have nowhere else to store them.  And of course, the tubs present a spot where I can put more stuff that I need access to.

Then you have the really cluttered area - my parlor, basically, and my kitchen table.  This is where the bulk of my work is created.

My kitchen table tends to be the main greeting card/production area.  Sometimes it's where I eat meals.  If there's space.

I do move things around all the time, and the amount of stuff on the table depends on what I'm doing.  Right now the emphasis is on cards, so I have all my containers with card supplies on the table.

People move in and out of my building all the time, and occasionally they leave stuff behind that's useful.  Like this suitcase rack (I know you can't see it but it's the kind you used to see in hotel rooms - do they still have them?) that I found in the hall of my floor 2 weeks ago.  I immediately found a use for it as you can see.  (Last week I found a small set of shelves that I don't know yet what to do with but I'll find a use, you know I will).

Next to the kitchen table are shelf units that are vital (I get them at Target). They hold the things I'm not working on. I also have taller units in my bedroom that hold supplies.



Then there's the place where I work on collages on canvas, which is incredibly cramped being in the parlor corner and so things get piled on the table when it's not in use and I have to take things off the table when I need to use it.

 
 My computer area, if you want to call it that, is the recliner in the other corner and also my couch.  I'll use the laptop on a TV table, unless Junior decides to sit on it as he's doing in the photo.  

 And, finally, here's the long view, looking towards the windows (of course Junior's still literally on the computer).

To use an overused cliche but it fits - it is what it is.  But you know what? It's fine.  I've worked in cramped spaces all my working artist life and I'm used to it.  I'm not sure what I'd do if I had a huge amount of space.

Actually I do.  I'd fill it up with more art stuff.

Visit Seth's blog today to see links to other working spaces.  I know I'm not the only one out there.

later,
lin

The Continuing Saga of...

Thursday was an interesting day.

I'd written the blog post about my supposed lack of art therapy this summer, and I was dealing with the fallout from my weekly therapy session with the wonderful Stacie Cummins McLaughlin (if you're in the Providence area and need a therapist, see her), and I was full of "shoulds" (which I'm trying to change to "coulds" - see what I mean in a future blog post).

Lots of shoulds.  Like what I should do today.  I should hang out at MickeyD's and do some work on my new self portrait project.

 I should get my hair cut (after 2 months of dallying - I really hate getting my hair cut).  

I should go to Staples and get a black ink cartridge.  Blah blah blah. 

 And always, I should make art.

Problem was that I was dealing with repercussions from my therapy session.  It'd been very difficult and I was feeling upset, angry, sad, negative - you get the idea.  I actually do think that if I feel this way after a therapy session it's been a good one.  It means that I've chipped away a bit at the brick wall I'm trapped behind.  

I also should note that this mood was probably not noticeable to people - I'm very good at hiding it.  Too good.

What I did do was get my hair cut, grab some things at Dollar Tree, and pick up 2 things from Stop and Shop - all in the same plaza, handy because I don't drive but use public transport.  Turns out that part of what I got from DT was unnecessary, but that's OK.  And went home and wondered what to do.

Simmering beneath all my recent angst has been the awareness that if I intend to go back to Etsy (not that I really was thinking of leaving but I didn't know what I was going to do), now would be a good time to get ready.

Etsy is a necessary part of my life, I know.  At least for now.  It's where I park my stuff.  Christmas is coming soon, and it'd be nice to make some sales, and it would help if I had new stuff listed.  I have stuff to list now (magnets), photos of work that need to be edited, and a big pile of cards to be made where the foundations are laid already.

In the meantime, I had been getting frustrated with the state of my house.  I had been quite manic in thinking up hundreds of projects that were getting nowhere because I kept distracting myself and not following through.  And they made a big mess on my kitchen table.

Bad Chaos

My ability to work coherently was gone because of the clutter.  My space was disappearing.  What organization I'd had before was gone, and I needed to take charge.

So that's what I did.  And this is the result, after about 3 hours of reorganizing, sifting, tossing, and so on.

Good Chaos

You may ask "What's the difference?"  The difference is that what's on the table is purposed stuff.  In the back is my tub for cards and the calendars I'm making for Christmas gifts.  I have a few of my personal projects handy.  And I changed the table cover.

And I also cleaned out my kitchen closet which was in dire need of some organization.  And Friday I worked on the collage space.  I think that will always be cluttered because it's so small.

Although I still felt depressed and down, seeing a bag of trash and the bag of paper to be recycled swept some of the cobwebs out of my brain and it signaled an accomplishment.  Cleaning is good for the soul - I really believe that.

I'm hoping this will help clean out the crap in my soul too, in a small way.  Getting back to purposeful work may be something I need.  I know I enjoy making the work for sale in the shop.  As Cynthia said in her comment on my Friday post, if I enjoy it then it's therapy.  And I've always believed that.  I just feel, though, that by relying on the tried and true I am not pushing myself to do better.

It's going to be necessary that I learn how to prioritize my art tasks, making sure I have time to make something different, for me.  Work out the details.  Make lists.  Research.  Sort of what Bob Seger says in "Against the Wind:"

Deadlines and commitments,

What to leave in

What to leave out

That is definitely a "should."

later,

lin

Organizing, Organizing

My normal work spaces usually end up becoming a mess.  I pull things from everywhere, stack them everywhere, and gradually the actual space I work in becomes ever smaller.

I think most artists fall into this trap.  I've not met anyone yet who really is so neat in their working process that their space stays orderly while creating something.

Some of us leave our work areas that way.  I've usually been guilty at that.  What happens, though, is that I stare at the mess and feel disinclined to do anything in the space - because it's so cluttered and messy.

I'm sure you guys know that feeling all too well.

In an effort to clear out mental and physical cobwebs, I decided to try to reorganize the painting area that I had worked so hard to put together about 2 months ago.  I haven't used the area very often BECAUSE OF THAT MESS.

So this is the before picture, taken when I was working on the Art Challenge abstract assignment

As you can see, there's really not much space to do anything.  Nothing is placed neatly.  Keep in mind that my space is constricted anyway, and you can see in the background the tubs I need to put excess supplies in, as well as the shelving system I use to keep things I use more frequently at least somewhat visible.

So on Sunday I decided something had to give.  There were projects I wanted to work on, and the clutter was getting me down.

One of my first tasks was to organize the canvas panels and watercolor paper

(People think I have way too many small bins and containers - when I do projects like these, they're vital).  The bin is at the right end of my table, pushed against the wall.  By the way, more canvases and paper got stuffed into this bin.

In the process of reorganizing things, one finds things that don't belong - like these

Necessary but in the wrong place.  The tape has been moved into the collage area, although the cloths stayed on the table.

Things were still messy midway but I was making progress - really

I had to figure out where things worked best and readjust containers and storage.  By the way the small plastic containers you see in the foreground are perfect for water and small items that I need to stash temporarily.

One final task was to figure out what to do with my stencils.  Previously they lay flat on a shoe box top

This doesn't work at all, as you might imagine.  When I'm searching for the right stencil everything gets shifted, falls off the top...well, you can guess the rest.

The answer?  Yet another bin, a small one that's just right

Why am I so excited about this particular thing (and also the bin where I put the canvases)?  Because they're simple solutions to what I thought were difficult problems.

That was just about the last task to straightening up the mess, and here's the result

It may still look like a mess, but trust me - it's way better than before.  

Now I really don't have much of an excuse to not sit down and paint.  But I'm sure I'll find one.

later,
lin

Lessening Chaos

As I said Monday, it's a difficult time for me psychiatrically.  And I'm grateful for the support I've been getting - thank you.  You know who you are.

I do try to push back.  I make a concerted effort to fight against this, even to the point of ignoring when it's time to cry uncle and say "I can't do this alone."  I said to my doctor today that I am very stubborn when it comes to that, and her response was simply that I know what works best and she trusts me to make the right decision when I need to.  

Yes, I'm stubborn.  I don't want this to defeat me, even though I have to concede that I might be in a little more trouble than usual.

But I digress.

Art is of course one way to fight the demons.  If I can make myself create something, at least I can feel as if I've accomplished something.

But one needs space in which to work.  My collage space, specifically speaking.   Clutter ruled the space.  Not that I didn't know what was where - we artists always tend to know what we have and where we put it, right?

But I knew that visitors to my flat were a bit, um, bemused by the clutter.  And even I had to admit that it was getting in my way.  I really didn't have much room to actually WORK.

So, in an effort to try to keep myself busy I decided yesterday that I needed to do something to make things work better.

This is the before

In my defense I have to say that I live in a 2 1/2 room apartment so there's not a lot of space to begin with.  This apartment wasn't made for a crazy mixed media artist with tons of supplies.  

But it still needed some semblance of order.

Tuesday, then, was spent trying to create order.  Visible order.  It took me about 4 hours or so to actually get to the point where I was satisfied that things made sense.

and

Bins on the shelves are labeled, what existed in several containers is now combined, and things are in the right place - for now.  We all know, of course, that as we're working things tend to get messed up again.  But the space feels less cramped, and even lighter.  As you can see I am close to windows (and the air conditioner) so there's light.  My usual desk lamp now lives on the painting table (which also needs organizing), so I need to get another for this space to work at night.

Now that this is organized (for now), maybe I will actually be able to create something here.

later,
lin