Is good housekeeping possible when my home is where I make art?

A smaller house means there is less space to expand. Right? Wrong!  A ranch style house of 1,200 sq.ft. with few closets means there is plenty of wall space to have a rotating exhibit. The reason I was enthusiastic about our purchase of a smaller house was because there is less surface to clean and more time to paint. I thought. But do I have more time to paint when I run low on space to hang and store paintings? My dear husband worries I spend way too much time moving my paintings around.

Recently the new painting of vases was in the community show at Guistina Gallery, LaSelles Stewart Center on the OSU campus. When I brought it home, I considered taking it out of the frame because there was no space for it in my storage bins. I was depressed.  Retiring a painting so soon was against my rule of thumb of  keeping it around for at least ten years before recyling.  I didn't want to just take it out of the frame to shelve it with other archived paintings. I needed to have it up to inform paintings that I will do next.


Before

After

 I took action. When I will it, there is always a way to rearrange my paintings so they will fit. I am amazed at how hopeless it appears but I always find a way at least so far.



The new vase painting was done on a recycled unfinished painting from a series of vases I was doing in 2007. The other four paintings are completed paintings from that series that I will not paint over.   The ceramic vases under the reading lamp also came from that period. I shaped vases with a theme of what friends and family said they valued most. The ice cream cone symbolized generosity.

My arrangement allows me to think about whether or not I will continue the vase series in the next paintings I do. In my ranch style house even the most mundane tasks become a part of my painting process. So the amount of housekeeping may not be less than in a big house.  I  rearrange my work so often, my efficient use of time is probably poor.  But restricting the size of my collection requires creative choices like painting makes the tasks of living interesting. I just might have to rethink my retirement from selling.  Back to dreaming about my symbolism of vases and wondering where my next exhibit will be.

These two are loaned back to me
I so like seeing my old paintings,
I am willing to take them back
as loans, trades, or
have them designated in wills
to be returned to me.
 

Serendipity enters. A large 4' x 5"  painting that I never expected to sell sold. And two paintings of dragon vases  that the buyer took down so they could hang their new one are loaned back to me for the purpose of my exhibiting them in one of my shows.

I really, really enjoy my retirement from actively trying to sell my art. The exhibiting of these loaners will wait. They will inform my new work. Happy to see them more. I'll find a way to incorporate them in my home. Right?

new dragon painting, "Venting"

Tomorrow I will post how "Venting" morphed plus more dragon paintings.