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Eight Months Without Painting – Studio to Gallery Saved Me

I haven’t painted on a canvas in eight months and while I might say I had no choice in the matter, we did choose to renovate the house and ensure that the uninsulated cold garage, which was my studio, become a fully insulated and heated art studio. If you follow my stories on Instagram, you might remember me showing you my thermometer during winter. Painting in a room that was 2oC was a bit ridiculous and my joints didn’t appreciate it.

 

Builders are as optimistic as artists and they estimated that the works would take 4-5months to complete. We are now at month 7… or 6 if you don’t count September as the month where they were supposed to start, but the guys putting up the scaffolding would spend a couple of hours here and there and then vanish. So officially, works started in October.

 

a)      During those months I planned on writing more – that didn’t go very well

b)      Reading more – that went exceedingly well and although I don’t usually track how many books I have read, it has been over 10 with a mix of fiction and non-fiction since Christmas. It was also quite nice receiving pre-orders I had forgotten about.

c)      Sketching and planning future paintings – great success! I have plotted over 14 paintings, some in detail, some in less detail. Considering it takes time completing the paintings, it is quite easy for me to get ideas while I am painting, which is why I have several notebooks scattered around the studio as well as art books and books from which I can draw inspiration. The computer helps when I can’t remember the name of a flower, for example, but I prefer a more analog approach to art. Observing the world around me and then looking inwards as I identify, and then end up feeling, the whole gamut of that emotion. Sometimes I find it frustrating that I cannot embody that entirety into a two-dimensional surface, which is why, thankfully, music, theatre, movies and interpretive arts exist. But I do put my everything into my chosen medium and try not to hold back by getting too caught up in the details.

 


I boxed up my studio in August and was looking forward to moving in at the end of January. It is now March and everyone is impatient for this thing to be over already. I have all this pent-up creative energy that I basically unleashed onto my sketchbooks and notebooks, but it is not enough. Especially when I realised that I had also put my gouache and larger sketchbooks into storage. As I went on wanting to do more, I not only did not have the space in my cramped-up living room – lots of boxes with paintings that I didn’t want in storage, I also have flashbacks to my August self putting things, I wish I had not, put into storage. As you may, or may not have experienced it, a storage room is basically boxes, upon boxes, and miscellaneous things you potentially want to keep in a 4x4x3meter room and the only now accessible things are the ones by the door. After several months, unless you labelled those boxes, you have no clue what is what and what is where. Except for that table and radiator by the front door and a random broom?

 

As I write this, the builders are right outside the window listening to upbeat untz untz untz music and scraping the cement, polishing, and evening things out before the coat of paint. There is also builders in the kitchen putting up the worktops and using some extremely toxic stuff that I am sure is making me slightly lightheaded and nauseous. I will probably notice it once I stand up and decide to go for a walk in the park and get fresh air.

 

This is the sort of thing I have been dealing with. Noise, toxic fumes, and having to answer questions, buy stuff they need, make decisions about position and what goes where etc etc. All the while, bursting with the need to create. There were many many days that I just had to get out of the house in search of peace and quiet, as well as inspiration. Exercising usually helps, but like the COVID period, towards the end of the pandemic I became more filled with dread and hopelessness, which sounds absurd because there is an end date for this build. I can see how much has been done and how little is left. Yet…

 

This is where Studio to Gallery comes in. More precisely, the first week of February. Sonia Borell invited me to join her platform around January time. I knew more or less what it was about and thought it was a good idea. I am not great at seeking out connections, even when I try. Unless I get a good vibe from someone, I won’t approach them. Needless to say, Sonia emanates positivity, joy, and she is an incredibly dedicated, hardworking person who goes above and beyond. I am not even sure she sleeps… If I sleep for 3-4 hours, I will literally not function the next day because that little sleep results in headaches, feeling nauseous all day, and potential joint pain. If you have autoimmune diseases like I do, 8-10hours sleep is basically one of the much-needed remedies alongside a well-balanced, healthy diet.

 

Once I joined Studio to Gallery, I was flooded with information as well as hope. I got to meet a wonderful group of artists that I chat with on Zoom, Discord, and Instagram, and we exchange ideas and information. Sonia holds weekly Q&As where we can ask her for advice, ideas, and she gives us lots of information on the world of art collectors. Most importantly, she helps guide and connects us with people who can help on our journey from emerging artists to professional artists. Artists who can have a long sustainable career. We have been given a lot of food for thought, which means that between now and my studio getting ready, I can outline my career goals, jot down ideas, and basically try to take over the world – rereads the third line of the previous paragraph. I also have ideas on how to work on the “not great at…”

 

studio to gallery

In short, no art studio at the moment, but Studio to Gallery has now given me homework to do, and keep me occupied before I go insane from not being able to cover a canvas in oil paint.

 

 










If you want to know more about Sonia Borrell and Studio to Gallery, check you her interviews:

 

  

 

 

 
 
 

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