Hello old friends,
I’d ask how you are, but I’ve been speaking with many of you & I know.
This is a post mostly about a studio, and maybe a bit about carrying on being a teaching artist sharing internationally in a hard world.
When I listened to my friend & teacher Sarah Chappell’s podcast the other day I appreciated her words tremendously. One of the things she said, and I’m paraphrasing, was that folks out there on the internet trying to share {sell} in a time of crisis aren’t heartless hacks, they’re trying to pay their rent and keep their lights on. You can listen to her whole podcast here.
If we had time
we could sit in circles for months and talk about the ways grief cuts its valley and our lives never leave space for our tending to it.
We work grief in around our tasks -in a world that would rather bulldoze over it, we have always had to find a way to work it through.
We also have to find a way to carry ourselves.
I think about all the ways we do the work differently and about all the ways we learn from one another.
I don’t know about you but my internet has gotten increasingly loud and the places I seek refuge the most are the ones that aren’t ignoring the pain but that offer safe places to engage with the heartbreak, as well as places that acknowledge while offering respite from it too.
I wanted to share those thoughts before I turned to this - a slow studio build coming along.
This studio has been in the plans for 2 years, but in my heart far longer. I thought you might like a peek as it comes along?
A studio of her own
My studio was mostly gobbled up when my spouse started a job working from home.
I can sort of work from anywhere1 and I didn’t want to take up resources for my small business if I could bibbidi-bobbidi-boo it anywhere (kinda).
I had a hard time coming to terms with spending our savings and taking out a loan to support my work.
So I shifted to a make-do studio in our bedroom and in short order my already dismal sleep suffered.
While getting a handle on my health woes this year a doctor fixed me with a firm stare & proclaimed loudly: “Get your work out of your bedroom immediately!”
While this isn’t exactly immediate, it is major progress.
The studio is small, in the downstairs of our big old barn, it’s being made out of 2 old stalls, plus a smidge. It’s about 175 square feet at the utmost.
Trying to start building it properly this spring was comical.
First, we dealt with some grading woes + potential water issues alongside one side. That’s a simple sentence for a lot of thinking and percolating. You’ll see the cement wall & curb solution in a photo or two if you look for it.
Then we pulled everything that was shoved ceiling high out of the two gnawed on, (literally, you could see horse teeth marks) separate stalls.
My carpenter looked at me with a particular, “What are you saving these random pieces of wood for?” look that he gives me.
It’s a look I return with a wide-eyed:
“Why they are for you to use of course!” -a woman who knows absolutely nothing about carpentry but has come to learn that when I wave my hand in a particular way and say: “Just give me a little something simple like butterflies~dance~with~walnut there.”
-that hand flourish and thought? It probably comes with at least a $1,000 baseline price-tag. I try to keep my hand flourishes to a minimum these days.
I didn’t take a photo of the before stalls. I know, I’m disappointed too.
This is as close as we got, a photo captured after the wall in-between the stalls had been removed:
A studio built inside a community place
Once everything was cleared out, it was time for the beginnings of a floor, and then it was time to put everything back in the stalls because we had our May Arts Fest planned.
Y’all. It’s a miracle I still have a carpenter buddy friend.
We should have just shook hands & said, “See you in November.”
By the time the stalls were cleaned out and could be worked on again, it was time to put it all back up for a round of glorious dancers in residence upstairs:
Moving things back and forth when you only have so much storage space is a dirty pokey business. I’m acquainted more than most about how dirty and dusty a barn sitting on a gravel road is.
It’s a quaint and hardworking community space too, and not just for humans. The barn swallows, farm cats, groundhogs, snakes, an occasional opossum, plenty of squirrels (& I’m sure more) are all residents.
At one point during our shuffling of the stuff our carpenter looked at me & said, “Maybe you need another barn for all, uh, this?”
I wanted to cry.
You know those cute little: “all I want for Christmas comes in a size 80 acre victorian estate things” you see on social media?
Yeah, not me. I know what owning multiple old buildings on some land takes:
Tending, Cash, & Stash -of supplies for all those come-what-may moments.
& I just removed a good portion of our storage where we keep our stash for the come-what-mays. We’ll need to travel lighter, a daunting task when our big old red beauty of a barn has needed lots of love to carry on for future generations.
I’ll ponder than another day, for now we’re here.
The stalls looked like this when the space wasn’t acting as a storage unit:
…and I decided I wanted to move that wall separating our farm storage area & my studio space to give myself a smidge more room. Whoops?
Meanwhile we found old termite damage for repair. 2 steps back.
By now it was time for the Three Graces Songwriting retreat which was just incredible:
…but it did mean that all the lumber, tools, sawhorses, and carpentry detritus had to go back into the future studio space yet again.
And here we are
in November:
November is my month, maybe even my favorite month. I like it’s honesty, the faded brown colors, the last remaining red oaks. I like the growing dark before seasonal doldrums set in.
It’s the month where our community commitments are done. The upstairs dancer’s loft is being put to bed. Things can be wherever they are here.
Doors as metaphor?
My carpenter buddy says that I pick the most glorious doors but that there’s gotta be a metaphor for me in there somewhere - all my doors are bigger than they should be & require a considerable amount of reconfiguring.
The wall below is where almost all of my natural light source will come from. The horizontal wood here is the studio space. And the wall will be mostly made of these big old doors used as windows & a side light:
I think most of the labor paid is in fiddling with those dang doors.
May they be as hard working & wearing as they are beautiful.
Do you want further studio updates as it comes along? Let me know.
I hope you too work to meet your needs, tend to your hearts my beauties, and I hope you pull the curtains & turn the key when you need quiet rest too.
Such love to you.
This has become increasingly untrue.
Each time I teach a live class segment I reclaim my old studio room. Live class segments are my absolute favorites. I throw everyone out of the house. I grab everything I need from the various corners items have been banished, set the space up, and arrange it for that class. Then everything has to go back from whence it came. It is a production that takes a lot of effort. Often I teach a series of class segments on back to back weekends, yes, I do indeed need a dedicated space.
Yes, please continue with updates!!! ❤️
Love the doors, the gnawed on stable wood, the hardware, love all of it! Can’t wait to see the finished product! It will be where magic is created! Appreciate the artistry of your carpenter, and remember all good things take time. Keep the photos coming!