When Your Very Own Art Studio Wish Comes True - Part II
The furniture is in, I put away canvases, paints, set up my computer and I’m happily listening to music and enjoying getting the art studio “ready.” I start putting up some of my artwork on the walls and reflect on the different eras and chapters of my art life I have lived through. I put up my father-in-law’s artwork on the wall, feeling him close to me. My own father was an artist as well, but his choice of subject matter was rather graphic naked women which didn’t really fit on my walls. I have some sports drawing he did as a teenager and those will have to do. I have my favorite art teacher’s work in the studio and my partner in the ArtSquare, Lorie Taylor’s work. I feel like I’m with a team of artists.
Music is also important in the art studio and I am inspired to call the studio the Holiday House after Taylor Swift’s song The Last Great American Dynasty about the actual Holiday House in Rhode Island. Okay, we’ve got the furniture in, organized tools and art for the first time ever, art on the walls, and now the art studio has a name! Let’s go.
And here is where I become completely overwhelmed. Now what? My husband asks, “do you feel pressure to create great art now?” No, that wasn’t it. I don’t feel any particular pressure in that regard. I realize, quite clearly, that the Holiday House means that I have value to my husband, but also that he values my art. It’s not “just” a hobby, he knows it matters. I began to reflect how my art never held as much value as it did when I moved into the Holiday House.
As a kid I grew up drawing, in my highchair, at the kitchen table, on a big book as a desk on my bed, in notebook margins, on book covers, but never in a special place. My parents didn’t send me to art camps, we didn’t have a lot of money and the only art supplies I had available were reject paper from a company my grandmother worked at and pencils and pens. When I made it into an art studio class in high school, I didn’t know how to paint. I was behind all of my classmates and I quickly assessed they were better, more worthy of careers as artists than I would ever be.
As an adult, I continued to draw, but also in no designated place. Only in the last few years when I started to go to art retreats and take online classes did I carve out some actual space in a shared office. Now, to sit in this glorious Holiday House, I realized I felt overwhelmed because it was a beautiful tribute to valuing my creative spirit, my artistic ability, and my time. Value isn’t easy to accept if you’re not used to it. I decided the first work of art I would do is a rendering of the actual Holiday House in Rhode Island. I put Taylor Swift on blast and started to paint.