I am sitting in my studio surrounded by my things. This morning I started week two of my “Swedish For Immigrants” (SFI as it is known) course.
After hearing that I could have the studio from the first of December I called the removal firm in the UK to arrange delivery of my stuff – stuff that they have been storing since the end of August. I asked them to bring it as soon as possible. I thought with Christmas and New Year, and their busy schedule that it would arrive in January. I was wrong. They could (and did) deliver on 7th December.
It is great to come here after my morning lesson and begin unpacking things. The boxes are mix of things that belong in the studio and things that really belong at home. I acquired a lot of things in the 10 years that I had my own home. I have never moved in with someone before and I’m not used to there not being space for my things, or my things duplicating what is already there. Perhaps I could have packed even less.
I want to unpack my books for two reasons; one, I miss seeing them and having them around, and two, the boxes that they are in are taking up a lot of space in the studio. The studio is an odd shape – it has an irregular pentagram footprint. There are two pairs of identical length walls and one odd short wall. The shortest wall is taken up by the door and small storage area that the artist I’m subletting from is using. The shorter pair of walls are adjacent to one another and are directly opposite the door. These walls each have three windows and radiators on them. The longest pair of walls are opposite each other. One of these I want to keep clear for working on and in front of, so I will put shelves for book and materials on the other one.
Before I had the studio my mind kept racing away with things I wanted to do and materials I wanted to play with. Now that I am actually here it is a bit daunting to get going again and I am allowing myself to unpack at a leisurely pace, telling myself that it is important that I get things in the right place before I start making new things. Perhaps it would be good to spend the rest of the afternoon putting the boxes of books in front of the wall where the shelves will be and then to start unpacking my old art works and materials …
