Transitions: New RV Studio Tour

I am writing this post a day late. I took yesterday “off” for my mom’s birthday. It was her first birthday where she wasn’t here with us. It was a tough day, for sure, but we kept busy with homestead projects. I’m not certain I’m dealing with her loss in the healthiest way, but I’m making do and coping. 

 

Mixed in with the homestead projects this week have been preparations for the arrival of my husband’s parents and also an exciting new studio move. Those who have been following my art journey on Facebook and Instagram will know that my first “studio” space was a desk area in our kitchen. As I got to working more regularly, the materials and associated mess expanded, so last year my husband suggested I take over the guest bedroom. That area also became somewhat “small” for the materials and work, but I had plenty of table space for office work and framing paintings. I was rather content there, BUT every time we had family visit and stay, the space had to be converted back into a guest bedroom. 

A desk in my kitchen was a great start

I was so thankful to take over
the guest bedroom for a while

Recently my husband had a crazy, wonderful idea that we could get a travel trailer, RV type space to be a studio. At his urging I looked around online and actually found a 1996 Dutchmen 5^th wheel RV. The folks who owned it before me began a renovation of the space, but it wasn’t quite completed. It cost less than a newer model which should allow me to complete renovations and maybe even add solar panels and a composting toilet. My lovely husband hit two birds with one stone, because I have been looking at tiny houses for years now, so this new studio space satisfies my yearning for a tiny house of my own. 

 

My wonderful father and our dear friends Bill and Josh helped to change the hitch to work with the ball hitch in my dad’s pick-up truck, and the new studio arrived here at our place last Friday. It will need some work, but I’ve been able to move in most of my art materials. There are great storage cupboards, cubbies, and closets, and the middle area is tall enough for my easel. I honestly would never have dreamed of having a separate studio space any time soon, so I’m so excited to get to work and am still a bit in shock that it has worked out. I look forward to sharing the renovations and studio updates with you!

Here comes the studio on Papi's truck

The mid point is tall enough for my easel

  

The kitchen and booth areas

My canvases fit nicely in the closet

I can even fit books in the cabinets

What is your "studio" space like? Do you use your kitchen table, a desk in the living room, a guest bedroom? How do you navigate space and time for art making? I'd love to hear how others are handling their art creation spaces!

Overwhelm

On the risk of sounding a bit like I’m whining, my topic this week is overwhelm. I realize that I live a privileged existence here in a first world country, but despite that I still suffer occasionally from overwhelm. This past weekend I was truly under the weather on Sunday. I’m not sure if I caught a stomach bug or if it was the Boston Crème doughnut I ate on Saturday (bakery to remain unnamed), but I felt a bit like death warmed over. Luckily my husband had the day off and was able to pitch in and help out despite also being pretty tired from his six-day work week. On Monday morning I felt somewhat better, and I managed to get out of bed at a reasonable hour. I even wrote my Morning Pages. In my stream of consciousness writing, I found myself mentally sorting through all the projects, paperwork, and plans, that I have going. 

 

Around 7:30am I transitioned to getting the kids up and fed. My father very sweetly stopped by a little after 8am to check on me to see how I was doing. It’s fairly standard for us to check in around that time in the morning to discuss our plans for the day, so it wasn’t as if his visit was unexpected. He began to talk about our small herd of cattle that are living on a neighbor’s farm. The plan is to move most of them here soon, so that said neighbor can start his own herd again. We have amazing friends who are helping us out with this project, so I don’t actually have much firsthand involvement. Regardless, it suddenly felt like one more project was being piled on, and I had missed a deadline already. It was sort of like those recurring nightmares I have where I show up to a mathematics class at university and all the homework assignments are due at end of term the next day, but I haven’t completed any. And it wasn’t a project that I started or had any say or decision-making power about really. Anxiety welled up.

 

I burst into tears. 

 

My poor dad came over and gave me a hug. He had zero idea of what I’d already been mentally juggling in that moment, and he’s got quite a few things on his own plate. We’re both still reeling from the loss of my mom to cancer complications last July. Her birthday is at the end of this month. Throughout the course of the day and several additional chats, I started to feel better bit by bit. Several things helped me, and now on Tuesday I feel like I *may* actually be able to tackle what I would like to achieve this season on the homestead and in my life. I think in many respects the anxiety and overwhelm came in no small part from feeling like I have projects to complete in support of others and that I am sometimes asked to de-prioritize the projects that are near and dear to my heart. When I feel overwhelmed, the suggestion often offered is to do less in the garden or to not worry so much about making my artwork. These aren’t actual solutions, but I’ll talk a bit about that in my next post. For now, I’m being patient with myself and remembering to chip away at my goals “bird by bird,” as Anne Lamott put it. I’ve sussed out a few things that help me to avoid or cope with overwhelm, so I’ll share those with you next time.

 

Be well. Be blessed. And remember to be patient with yourself.   

About this time each year...

So this year it's not August - we're nearly into November, and I'm writing a blog entry. So much changes from year to year despite the things that stay the same. Mom died back in July just days after sending a rather upbeat email update to the family about her chemo and immunotherapy treatments. She had decided to fight, to ask for a little more time - six months to a year. She made it a couple of months. 

There's nothing poetic about death. My mind searches for her pulling in the drive in the grey, well-worn HHR. I'm struck by a pang of expecting when I walk into my folks' living room and see her purse and her things just slightly out of place from where she left them. Search as I might, death has not given me any great words or sentiments to put into print, to share with the world in order to help others in the same state of profound loss. It just is. It's just a gap - a void - a feeling that I wish she'd just come home already. I keep thinking of things that I'd been meaning to ask her.