S u
s a n
F i e
l d gualala, ca
Journal
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Old studio January 19, 2007 - Friday I signed
a lease for a new studio a couple of hours ago! Had worried I wouldn’t find anything, or
that I’d land in someone’s unused bedroom.
But this is a 2-room office space in what will soon be our new
hometown, a 4-mile-drive from the house.
It’s 520 square feet, in a corner of the building so there are windows
on two sides. The carpet is sea-green;
who cares if there’s a split in the seam and dents where invisible furniture
used to be? Everything is painted
white (an improvement over my current studio with its dark ceiling) and
recessed lights. There’s a tail of
wires hanging midway down one wall for computers, and lots of outlets. The back room can be used for storage, the
front room for work. The space is cold
now; no electricity. And I’ll
like being able to walk the half-mile to town for a coffee, or follow a trail
to the beach when I need a break. The
immediate environment feels like a ‘guys’ place. Pickup trucks coming and going. Men in old work jeans and scraggly blond
hair. Next door is a concrete mixing
business, so I’ll hear the beep-beep of trucks backing up. There is zero ambiance as far as gentleness
or nature, though there are tall pines at the back of the property, and when
I was first looking at the space, a hawk screeched overhead. Tomorrow
is the mid-month Pay ‘n Take. I’ll rummage
around for area rugs to put under my work tables. I’m thinking of the red Persian-looking
carpet J. had bought for my cabin at Dorland, that she’d found at a thrift
store for $7. The one that got
swallowed up in the wildfire along with the rest of the colony three years
ago. I think too I will plant the amaryllis bulb S. gave me. And F. said he’ll help me build shelves. I wonder
if I’ll be able to hear the ocean from across the street. I wonder what kind of art I’ll make here. January 27, 2007 - Saturday Today I
washed the three windows. I borrowed a
wooden pallet leaning against the building to set my stepstool on, worked for
a couple of hours with a bucket of warm water and squeegee. It was more work than I’d thought,
removing the screens, etc. Some of the
windows are permanently streaked with a white film, but overall they look
better. I like the idea of working to
let in more light, plus this is a way of making it my space. While I
was washing a side window, saw the reflection of a hawk overhead, maybe the
same one I heard before. He was just
floating, flapping his wings every now and then. It was very good to see him. I like the idea of moving into his
neighborhood. An old
man with a grizzly gray beard drove slowly by in his pickup, curious, maybe
one of the renters across the lot. He
looked away when I looked back. I
thought that if Van Gogh were renting this space, he’d be quick to ask the
man to sit for him so he could paint his portrait. Inside,
I swiped away an old spider web in a corner of the ceiling. Otherwise, it’s been pretty quiet. January 29, 2007 - Monday I’m
thinking about this – “… I am
asked at least three times a week by absolute strangers: ‘How is it that you do not sell your work?’
“ Van Gogh, letter to Theo And this
– “You…can
be active without attachment to outcome and without placing unreasonable
demands upon the world: Fulfill me,
make me happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those
things….” Eckart Tolle, A New Earth January 30, 2007 - Tuesday Yesterday,
I spent all afternoon sorting out what to transport to the new studio, what
to throw out, what to donate to a local arts guild’s rummage sale. I’m tired now. All day
I’ve been thinking about my old drawings sitting in the gray recyling bin out
in the driveway. I know I want to
throw them out, but some part of me is still tugging. Some I made just to sell, years ago: oil pastels of daylilies on black canvas or
landscapes of CA hills that were new to me then. There are abstracts done on 4” square
pieces of fomecore, in the mid-90’s when I finally broke through drawing
realistically and worked fast and happy.
I thought everything was good then, and worthwhile. Worth saving. Yesterday I stood over the garbage can and
flipped them one-by-one into the receptacle.
They had something, little glimmers, but not enough. I want to move into the new space
uncluttered, leaving room for new things to happen. But my thoughts for a good part of the day
have been inside that gray garbage can. Still,
I’m keeping others. Some from when I
first started out in colored pencils, and L. & I used to meet one morning
a week at the greenhouse. I saved a
colored drawing of some tulip bulbs. I
saved the orchid on green pastel paper, framed at M’s when I worked in her
shop (she hated the dark oak, said it belonged in a funeral home). I saved the sunflower and the daylilies,
the pen and ink sketch of the sleeping cat, now dead. The masks made from varnished leaves, from
pods and birdseeds and fur. Newsprint
drawings of nude models, all those Monday mornings I went to life drawing
sessions. Can’t replace those. What if
I throw out something I’ll regret later? |
© Susan Field, LLC
2007. All rights reserved.