Making Space

I’ve spent a lot of time during Covid cleaning. I do clean my home once a week but closets and cupboards and book shelves do gather dust. Somehow during this Covid time, I’ve found myself going from all ‘go’ to full ‘stop. Over and over. 

In March, I was determined to keep to my work schedule. Clay days. Painting days. Firing days. Errands, home and cleaning days. I look back and see it was my way of coping during a very scary time. I thought if I ran fast enough, maybe I’d out run it all. 

My way of working out. 

While every other social media post showed new ways to work out ‘at home’. I did my usual: walking the dog, yoga and throwing. But I added more to my workout schedule. 

I wiped down all my oak cabinets, doors and drawers with Murphy’s Oil soap. I treated my 12 pieces of leather furniture with conditioners. I dusted shelves and scrubbed drawers. This weekend I’ve dusted and reorganized two closets, cleared out 10 drawers, one desk and a window seat full of, yes, more drawers. 

Turning my worry into work is nothing new to me. I’ve done it all my life. I don’t do it all the time but during a time like this, I find it’s a helpful, healthful coping mechanism. It’s a work out that helps in body, mind and, yes, soul. 

Feeling refreshed and ready. 

Life is a force for change. Whether we like it at the time or not, life moves us on. Moving for me seems to always involve some cleaning and clearing. Whether it’s just to settle my energy or let go of the past to move into the future, it’s a workout that works for me. 

I’m making space in my body, mind, life and home for something new. And new things are coming. Some I know for sure and others I don’t. Either way, I feel refreshed and ready. 

And my closets are really clean. 

Firing, Closets(again) and Smiling.

Yesterday, I was nervous.  I always feel this way when I fire up my kiln and it's not about what you might expect.  I'm not nervous about the kiln not functioning or something happening to my studio.  I'm not even really nervous about the outcome, it's only a bisque fire and usually this is an easy firing step.  What makes me nervous is the process of loading the pieces into the kiln.

Dodging, weaving and the dog.

The process goes something like this: load 3-8 pieces on a tray, weave through a hallway, down some steps, and around the dog.  Then unload the trays onto several small tables and start the fetch and carry process again.  All the time, hoping nothing falls off the tray.  Once all the pieces are outside, I arrange them by height, figure out how high I need to build the shelves in the kiln and start loading.  It feels like it takes forever.  It usually takes an hour.

Anxiety and closets, again.

Two more closets got cleaned this last week.  My daughter's bedroom closet had no floor space left and towers of stacked boxes labeled 'stuffed animals'.  She is married, has a master's degree and is pursuing a doctorate.  I don't think she really wants or needs 3 boxes of stuffed animals anymore.  While she was visiting, I got her to go through the boxes. 

A sad and sweet trip down memory lane.

Inside the boxes were her first white stride rite baby shoes, baby books, and very well-loved stuffed kitties, unicorns and pooh bears.  Most of the stuffed animals were recycled or donated but it was her baby books that she treasured.  Books like 'Goodnight Moon', 'Sunshine', 'Moonlight' and 'Lady and the Tramp' but her favorite was a book of goodnight poems that I used to read her so often, we both still remembered the words by heart.  The books and a few stuffed animals were lovingly re-packed into one box, instead of three.  Yes, they went back onto a closet shelf because she's moving to L.A. Soon.

Floor space.  Shelf space.  Even wall space.

Here's what I'm finding about all this closet cleaning.  When I open the doors, I look at the empty shelves first and smile.  There's something about seeing a cleared floor, an empty shelf or two, and labeled boxes that feels so good.  

I can't really explain my closet cleaning drive, yet.  I'm not sure what got me started or whether I'm finally done(I hope and so does my husband) but I will keep my mind open and curious and I'll write about what I find out here on my blog.  

Until then, I'll just open my closets and smile.

  

Digging Up The Past.

Studio closet 'before'

For the last month or so, I've been in closets, drawers and the attic.  Excavating.  Recycling.  Cleaning, donating and reorganizing.  It all started innocently enough when I opened one drawer and discovered my physical therapy equipment from my broken wrist almost 10 years ago. 

My wrist is strong enough to throw clay now.  It healed and so did I.

Granddaughter wearing one of my daughter's sun rompers

Next came the attic.  Oh, I have dreaded opening it up for years.  Every time I heard a weird sound at night, I'd see squirrels eating my books or making nests in my children's baby clothes.  On dark and rainy nights, I pictured streams of water turning all my photos into mushy piles of mold.  But with the birth of a new granddaughter, it was time to see if the toys I'd so lovingly boxed up could be passed on to a new generation.

Up into the attic, my husband climbed.  My dread turned to delight.

My son's two favorite toys and robot overalls

The boxes were sealed and dry.  Books came down by the dozens and just needed dusting.  Toys, too!  There were boxes of wood blocks, Brio trains, My Little Ponies and the best of all, a wooden bead roller coaster.  Baby clothes were warm and dry and ready to wear.  Ok, they needed to be re-washed and some needed to be donated but both my 'kids' have a nice box of baby to toddler clothes to use for their children.  My husband found some pictures from his first radio job.  But I left my high school yearbooks boxed up for another day.  

Oh that, closet under the stairs.

Ad for Portland Radio Broadcasters

I wrote a whole blog about my closet excavations.  You can read it here.  It was quite a dig but in the end, well worth the effort.  I've since gathered up all my bigger oil, acrylic, watercolor and pastel paintings and put them in the back of the closet behind the Christmas decorations.  It's a great space for them and they are all together for the first time in years.  Now when I open the closet, it feels so fresh and light.  

Space, really is the final frontier, especially in my studio.

The piles of old studio stuff ready for recycling

I shuddered when I confessed to several friends the horror hidden in my studio closet.  It was so bad, that I had to push things inside so I could close the doors.  I've always thought of myself as a no-clutter, organized person, so this was growing into a nightmare in the closet for me.  Yesterday, I thought I would be able to pull some handles, and get the closet cleaned while they dried, then put the handles on the mugs.  Wrong!  

The closet took all day.  And again, it was a trip into my past.

A collection of old paintings and pastels

This time, I dug up my journals, sketchbooks, watercolors and acrylics. Some sketchbooks were my 'toys' I played with on weekends or vacations after my day job in advertising.  Others were from my early Mom days, then onward to art school classes and studio ideas which turned into art pieces I've shown in gallery shows.  

"Two Faced" A fiber art piece with embroidered drawing of Katherine Hepburn on one side, abstract on the other.

There were fiber art pieces from my 'Pieced Imagery' class.  Drawing and painting class assignments.  Stacks of old print and watercolor papers. A few masks along with drawings of all my mixed media pieces and copper masks.  Binders of slides of my older gallery work.  A box of masks made by children in my mask classes.  Photos of me in the classroom during my artist in residence. Lots of art materials from pastels, paints and paper to copper, screening and beads. Some were definitely ready for recycling but others were happily rediscovered.

Lost and found projects.

The misfit shelf

One shelf was my land of misfit pieces.  There were quite a few clay busts in there along with some copper work.  It's the first shelf I see when I open the closet and, I realized today, makes me sigh. It's my 'should' shelf.  I should finish them.  Paint them or make bodies for them or get bases for them or...  

Maybe their not lost at all.

Clay sculpture: male and female faces, lion and raven

Taking all my misfits out of the closet, I was forced to touch them and really look at them.  Really, really see them.  And what I saw weren't misfits or unfinished work at all.  I saw finished work, ready to go out into the world with just a few little adjustments.  They were ready.  But I was not.  

It's hard to let go, isn't it?  

Maybe that's why I've been in and out of all those dark closets.  Digging up the past, I've found a lot of dirt and dust and memories but I've uncovered a lot of surprises, too.  Like awards and pretty baby outfits and precious toys, books and, yes, some unfinished projects and some that are ready to go out into the world.

Studio closet 'after'...you can see the floor!

Maybe, so am I.  It's time to let go of the past and move onward.