With Kinetica and half term over, today I had to face my studio. As space is at a premium I had the usual task of infinate juggling -old work/new work – partly finished/resting work – stuff, stuff and more stuff.
I am currently sharing studio space with my ever patient father who is a retired graphic designer and portrait painter turned studio assistant at the age of 77 – for which I am eternally grateful. Despite the fact that we often do not see entirely eye-to-eye on artistic matters and the fact that he thinks many of my ideas are just plainly insane, he is always willing to help me solve the endless technical dilemmas that seem to beseige my work. I suspect that he did not expect this to happen when I happily trotted off to do a degree in embroidery many years ago.
The nature of my ‘time-heavy’ work is that I have collected a lot of stuff which most people would have long ago binned – and this makes up the core of my materials. It is a great child playground and my children are often rummaging around and finding long forgotten toys that I pinched from them when they were only ‘just a little bit broken mummy!’ This, combined with my love of the scrapstore means that my half of the studio is pretty much ‘standing-room only’. My poor father lives in constant fear that his side of the room (neat and clean) is gradually diminishing and merging into my side of the room (the opposite) and that he will soon be backed into a corner drowning under a sea of plumbing parts, old sacks and colour coded socks.
I promise…. I am trying to stem the tide.
