Is it wrong to get excited about storage units? Work has begun to convert the units I inherited from the college where I taught into something more practical for a damp, dirty studio space in a farm building. The guys are brilliant; they reckon it won’t take them more than an evening, (I think two).
I am pleased that it is not going to cost me all of the money I recently earned working on the Ryedale Open last month. Once completed, I will be the proud owner of four robust units on casters about 1m wide with work space on top. YES!
I’ve been going to bed with thoughts about what will be stored where, the most efficient use of the space available and the pleasure of having a tidy studio space in which to work! Now I’m sounding like a sad woman obsessed with tidying – nothing could be further from the truth. My working methods are messy and experimental; I am very tired of wasting my time looking for things though. With this storage I am hoping I will be able to lay my hands on everthing I know I have when I need it without walking up and down looking for it and getting frustrated and cross!
Meanwhile I have not been wasting my time; I have been reading other artists blogs, painting doors and windows at home, (not quite what I have in mind when I tell people I am a painter, but it is work that has to be done), beginning to reclaim my garden from the 4 feet high weedage and yesterday, I went to the Hepworth to see the William Scott exhibition.
I have never seen many of Scott’s works before and it was a real pleasure to see so many together. His use of paint, sometimes thickly impastoed, at others thin and washy, along with the varied tonality of his blacks and greys, the beauty of his reduced palette had the hairs on my forearms standing up. The sophistication of the simplified forms and his skillful composition is so often and badly copied by many lesser artists who would do well to get over to the Hepworth and see how it should be done. Great stuff!
