Thursday, April 18, 2013

Oh, the sadness of it all...

I am still sketching.  This is a given.  And my easel is still set up in the bay, waiting patiently, surrounded by my brushes and paints and other goodies.  But the truth is that the space around the easel has become a bit crowded... with one of my looms, and my spinning wheel, and the cabinet holding my spinning and weaving tools.  And sometimes a rack holding freshly washed fleece to dry. 

It's sad, really.  And it makes me sad.  It seems I'm always washing a fleece, drying it on a rack, combing it, making cute little nests out of it, and spinning, and planning what I am going to do with the yarn I spin.  I love doing these things, and that's what makes me sad: I also love to paint.    I can feel my hands itch to hold a brush, to make a mark on paper or wood or canvas, to smear the color about making new colors and creating shapes that evoke images...

There's just not enough room.  And truth told: I'm afraid if I paint, I'll get paint on my yarn! Or horrors-- on my spinning wheel. 

So this summer, I'm going to do a little rearranging.  A chair I don't need is already gone.  I'm looking for a shorter sofa.   An upstairs room is going to be fitted with shelves to hold fleece in progress, skeins to be marketed, and yarn wanting to be woven on one wall, and on another wall, shelves for canvases and wood panels and paper still waiting for my brush.  The rug loom will be set up there once I get it refurbished.  Um, if and when.

I am going to start displaying art again in random places (not galleries, and definitely not art guilds or associations), just to have somewhere else besides my own walls (and back of the sofa and under beds) to keep it.  I am going to sell my pastels, because I realized I really do not want the hassle of framing pastel paintings (though I love smearing the stuff around on paper: it makes very nice paintings).  

And then it will be safe to paint again.

In the meantime, check out my blog to see the fun I am having spinning.  Who knew it would be so much fun, with so much to explore and learn, and with so many nice people to hang around with?