The move from hell is finished.
It took two months to organize and prepare, 18 full trailer-load trips to the tip, countless carloads back and forth between the two houses moving small stuff, a week of cleaning which in the end wasn’t finished and three panel truck loads to move our furniture.
My back suffered, our car broke down during the last and most crucial push, which meant two, four hour round trips to Angouleme to the car dealership when we could least afford the time. And we thought our eighteen year old cat was going to die during the process. To say we were stressed would be an understatement.
Happily, the cat is happy as Larry, the car is running better than ever and we are sitting atop a pile of stuff thinking we should become brocanteurs; all it would take would be a new sign with open for business hours. Our belongings are stored in ‘Bay 1’ and ‘Bay 2’ of our downstairs and it looks just like a depot vente with all the white appliances on one side, furniture piled high and bric-brac down the back. I think we won’t go there.
I’m very ready to get back to work.
Speaking of work, the trip to London in September was fab! It was a very rushed trip but the Core Gallery Open which I co-curated with Ros Davis was a big success – I think it was the largest PV crowd we’ve had. The Artist Talking blog workshop was a success too with near full capacity. It really was wonderful to meet everyone. It gives me such encouragement and validation to discover people are responding positively to the things I do; it really is such a boost and a reminder that isolation is transient.
Even though as I write this, I’m still without internet, I have been working on several other projects and the clean-up has started in my new studio, hopefully I’ll be painting again soon; it has been a long fallow summer. In this fallowness and on my husband’s suggestion that I draw more, I’m taking part in the Art House Coop Sketchbook Project. It is a really great idea; this is the second year of the project. It is in conjunction with the Brooklyn Art Museum Library and all the sketchbooks returned by the deadline go on a world tour then become part of the permanent collection. It costs $25 to participate and an extra $20 to digitize your sketchbook. Each artist selects a title topic from a list of topics provided by Art House, such as ‘Encyclopedia of’, they send you a sketchbook and you’re off from there. The title of my sketchbook is ‘The Encyclopedia of Wherewithall’. To find out more go to: www.thesketchbookproject.com the deadline for sign up is 31st October 2011.
Now I just have to find the teapot and remember where I put the tea…..
