The Studio

Back when we lived in our cruddy old house, when we decided to tear it down and buy new, we bought a storage shed. We needed a place to store our belongings while we moved. We bought the double wide, then bought the shed a week later. The trailer was custom built and was supposed to take a month. Which was fine, we needed time to tear down the house, to pack, and to figure out how to live without a kitchen. One week later, our sales rep said our house had arrived and I laughed at her because all we had done was cut bushes to widen our driveway. The storage shed arrived on the same day as the house. I had forgotten it. The back side was already in place and if he hadn't came when he did I don't think there would have been room to drive through. My husband was going to use the shed as a shop after we were moved in, but he decided it was too small. He said I should make it my studio. I was pregnant at the time, and with the stress of moving and trying to cook in my hoarder in-law's kitchen, I didn't think about it much.

What ultimately happened was I couldn't create because I was busy growing a tiny human while trying to live a hot mess, then I was trying to keep tiny human alive while setting up a new house while trying to tend to children who had multitude of problems and were feeling displaced by a baby while we abandoned their home. And my husband still didn't have a place to store his tools. First he kept them in the old house, but eventually that didn't work because we tore off more and more of the building.

Finally we decided to share the shed. I'm just going to tell you now not to ever do any stupid thing like that. It's 3 1/2 years later and I still can't use my studio.

Friday I started cleaning. I intend to just organize my paint, but I kept moving things. Suddenly the table was clear. I was amazed.

And I swept the floor.

I cleaned in front of the door.

And I did get the paint organized.

I even found boxes that I can turn into product.

I found a bottle and jar cutter. I don't have instructions for it, but I think all the pieces are present. If I can figure out how to use it then I can add wonderful things to my inventory.

I decided to work in the studio every day even if all I do is clean off a shelf. Having a clean work table is a huge deal. I am almost to the point of being able to bring my daughter out here! When I was a child, I spent a lot of time in Granddaddy's ceramic shop. He had the dusty workroom, and up front he had a store. I don't know which was more amazing to me. I could go in the back where customers could not, but I could also dust the vases that people were warned not to touch. I learned to put decals on, a job previously only my grandmother did as only she was patient enough to smooth out air bubbles yet still keep everything centered. Both my grandparents talked about taking me on selling trips, but they died before I was old enough to go. They went to a large craft show in Virginia and were often gone for a week. My mother wouldn't let me miss a week of school. My life would have been very different if I had ever gone with them. I think I would have still became an artist, but I would be a potter. I don't know that I would have gotten into textiles. I do know the ceramic shop shaped me in a good way. I want my daughter to have that same sense of wonder and the satisfaction of creating.