I carefully saved the rusty metal roofing from my last studio.

The space on the left is the "clean" studio.

The one on the right the dusty one. Mostly it is a wood working studio, but it can be used for different, even dirty media!

The center section will always be open. It gives weather protection to the side studios. It also provides space to work on larger projects.

The white figure sculpture goes back to my undergrad days in art school. She guards the place!

More on my ongoing studio project.

The deck is in place as well as the back wall, but no roof.

sharpening pencils

My family seem to enjoy picking on writers.

We should not. My only sister is a writer, one daughter has published a book and is at work on others, a grandson recently graduated with a BA from a creative writing program.

A young lady once told me that a writer is one who writes. Publishing or having anyone read is another dance.

But we notice that writers often spend a lot of time thinking and working about writing and a lot less about actually writing. (Visual artists are at least as easily distracted, but that is a different post!). In my family we call that “Sharpening Pencils.” Don’t know where that came from, but it is our way of saying we are busy about being creative and really not being creative.

So when some one asks me if I have been “making art” I often say: “No, right now I am concentrating on craft.”

There is nothing wrong with craft. I am educated as a sculptor. It is fairly easy and quick to sketch out an idea, to make detailed drawings, but actually producing the piece of sculpture art involves a lot of craft.

Now I have my own head confused. Do I make art? Do I craft? I think I live my life and let others make defections.

Since I met Shar I have been involved in a series of house remodels. My house, her house and now our house. But, I was able to convince her that as an artist I needed a place to practice my art.

So I have been involved in the art and craft of building myself a studio, and my version of pencil sharpening!

Empty deck chairs. 

futility

Some people go through hard times and come out stronger. 

Some of us buckle with hard times and some, it seems don’t have hard times at all.

I fit into the second category, I think and hope. 

Miriam’s illness and death have not strengthened my faith in anything but futility. I’m slowly coming back from the edge, but I am not coming back to the place I used to be. I seem to be on the same edge, but half a mile down.

Everything has changed, everything is new and yet nothing is new. I met a lot of new people, made friends with a few. I found and married a new woman and life goes on. Sharon is a good woman. She lost her husband not long before I lost Miriam. She understands more than she says. 

I haven’t asked her about her inner conflicts. Not sure she could put them into words.  From the outside she seems to fit in with the people that never get unnerved, no matter what happens, the ones that never have a bad day. I know that is not true. I tear up more readily than she does, but I have seen her eyes overflowing with tears. 

But life goes on.