My studio is…

(This week’s Flam­ing Hot Blog It!)

…an appalling mess to look at, but in all that mess is a haven of cre­ativ­ity and seren­ity. It’s almost always that way, so it must work for me some­how.? I always have a small space for a stu­dio, and try to cram an insane amount of cre­ative para­pher­na­lia into it. That is bound to lead to clut­ter, but I do try to orga­nize it as much as I can.

In my starter mar­riage, I used the din­ing room as my stu­dio.? We removed the din­ing room table and I packed two floor looms, two book­cases, two floor-​to-​ceiling Skan­dia shelv­ing units filled with yarn and note­books, a desk made from two fil­ing cab­i­nets with a desk­top, a spin­ning wheel, a straight chair, and var­i­ous and sundry other mis­cel­lanea.? Basi­cally there was a nar­row path you could walk through to get from the kitchen door to the foyer (which had no door so I hung a cur­tain).? It was always a dis­as­ter but it was still my soli­tary, everyone-​keep-​out refuge and safe haven from the rest of my less-​than-​happy life.

Now I’m in the small­est bed­room of our condo, with about the same square footage.? The Skan­dia shelv­ing is still there, and even expanded, but now it con­tains book­bind­ing and col­lage mate­ri­als,? busi­ness sup­plies, and beads and jew­elry com­po­nents, along with note­books and still a wee amount of yarn.? The looms have been replaced by my lam­p­work­ing area, one table with my torch and one with my kiln and pri­mary glass stor­age.? Another small table tucks in a nook for the paper crafts. Now, though, I have a com­fort­able chair and read­ing lamp in one cor­ner so Mr. Frosty can keep me com­pany when he chooses.

At the moment my stu­dio is in worse shape than usual thanks to two spare oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tors and a map rack with glass tub­ing and other stuff sit­ting wher­ever there is space, since I haven’t found per­ma­nent homes for those three items yet.? Once I do (soon!)? I can do a lit­tle more tweak­ing and declut­ter­ing to get it to exactly the way it should be…the home of my cre­ative muse, my own play space.