The urge to make art

In my youth I thought of myself as an artist and a free spirit.  For twenty years I lived a basic lifestyle selling my creative services.  This is a picture of me in a kitchen that I designed and built in New Haven, Connecticut..  The photo is from the mid seventies.

With time I choose to assume responsibilities such as motherhood and marriage.  Other responsibilities were delivered to me by circumstances.  I never expected to be my sister's caregiver as she lost her fight with mental illness.  At the peak of my life as a responsible person I had a mortgage, a car payment, significant care giving responsibilities for family members both younger and older than me and a full time job.  How did I, the free spirit, end up with all that responsibility?  Through it all I kept making my art, although my medium changed with my resources of the moment.  That experience of continuing to make art when I was under serious time pressure is where I find my encouragement when I encounter short term obstacles to spending time in my studio today.  I've learned that the key to satisfying the urge to make art is to be flexible about the medium and to always keep making things.

Lillian St Studio Update

The structure has been buttoned up for winter and the facade looks great.  It's a tiny house in the urban hills of Pittsburgh that is going to be a fun studio. Notice the building permit. 

The interior is a construction project.  Walls have been removed and replaced with a laminated beam. 

The push right now is to get everything ready for the electrician to do the wiring.  After that it can be insulated and dry walled.  Tuesday was a workday for Beth Rogers and myself.  Our task was to deal with holes in the floor.

The holes are in the area of a former bathroom.  It was a cold day, with temperatures in the 20s, but with a couple Envi Heaters and vigorous work we were warm enough to work an entire day.  Patching the floor was time consuming because we had to attach wood to all the beams so that our patches didn't fall through to the lower level. 

We got the job done and the floor is solid.  It was a great work out.  This is my favorite form of exercise!    I have visions of playing with a band saw and drill press by next summer.  

Beth is in her 50"s and I turned 60 this past summer.  Part of the fun of this project is demonstrating that older women can handle projects like this one.  As an occupational therapist (my day job) I can report that an important element of how we work is the application of the principles of energy conservation and good body mechanics/ergonomics.