Cleaning Up and Clearing Space

Six bags of things I have no use for came out of the studio closet this week. All went to the trash. It is amazing how many things you think will be used that just end up under or behind something else. Now I can actually see everything in here.

In the main studio there are still corners left to be gone through.

And things that are hard to part with right now like favorite undergraduate pieces.

But I am getting close. There are now several boxes of books to be donated to the Fiber Arts and Book Arts studios of a local craft school. Many more to be given to a used book store.

The best part of cleaning up my space this week was finding a home for my collection of pop up books. When I went to catalog them, I found the collection had grown to over ninety. And I have not added any in at least five years.

I will likely give the same alma mater some of my artist books that have been exhibited but never sold. It is nice to think of them being appreciated by budding book artists. Lots of these are tucked into corners of shelves.

But not the many years of Australia travel journals. Those I will keep for several more years. Here is just one end of the shelf full of those and the few things I brought home from my last trip over in March.

And another group of things I find it hard to part with now are the small wooden tools and foundry molds. They feel so good in the hand and need to be used somehow.

But the studio is cleaner, neater and ready for the Art Group meeting tomorrow. I will sit at my desk/work table ready to take notes.

And they will find their usual places to do the same.

Next week I will go deeper into corners and clear out some more. Ready some things for a burn pile. And get back to the Specimen Journal. Maybe redo the linen scarves that did not seem to hold much of the earth pigments due to their gauziness. And maybe work more with the photos taken of what the driveway has to say to me about the daily trek from one end to the other and back. I am beginning to see a language in the temporary marks of shadows and patches and rain.

More next week about work and workshops.