Studio: 3,647 ; Lynn: 3

That's the score. My Studio has clearly won more battles then I have. I'll never forget the day I realized I could use one whole room for just making art.

I celebrated.

I rejoiced.

I moved in like a tornado and thought I was just the luckiest person on the planet.

Then I realized something horrifying...I would have to clean it.

See, as far as I can tell, there does not exist any cleaning fairies. And if they are out there, I need to hunt them down and trap them for myself. Until then, I'm pretty well stuck with the task. And while I don't have a compulsive need to keep things neat as a button, I also can't coexist with a mess that rivals a landfill.

I have learned that its a universal problem for all artists : keeping their workspace clean. That makes me feel a little better about the trainwreck that up until recently was known as my Stuido. I've done a few makeovers trying to tame the beast. The first one was when IKEA first came to town and was actually the thing that spurred me to starting this blog.

The shameful thing that I didn't reveal in that first makeover was that I didn't completely finish it. There was still no way to display artwork and there was also one whole half of the room that I didn't bother to photograph. Don't give me that look, it was a big improvement in and of itself.

The truth was that I just wasn't sure what in the heck to do with it. Its a fairly small space and I feel like I'm becoming more settled into my artwork so I'm getting braver in the things that I will try. Which means more stuff. Which means more mess. Which means the Studio continues to defeat me.

Okay, I'm going to show you these photos but only because if I don't, you won't appreciate just how grand it looks now. After this posting, these pictures will be forever destroyed and I will deny all knowledge of them. Here is what my studio looked like a month ago:



Disgusting, isn't it?

I finally came to the conclusion that the source of the problem was those white evil bowed work tables. I was using the top to store fixtures and containers of stuff and cramming junk underneath them. Which meant I had no idea what was under there and it was too easy to just deny its presence by kicking it under the table.

So I went spelunking and pulled everything out. About half of what was under there either got tossed or given away. I reduced it all down to stuff that I thought I would use. Oh, and don't feel too proud of me, its still a lot of stuff.

I think the Studio whimpered a few times during the process. It realized it was being defeated and since Tom helped me, I had reinforcements this time so there was no denying it. (All hail Tom, without him the battle would have been lost.) I finally finished it up today, I am so happy with it I was giggling like an insane person.

I'm inspired. I'm excited. I'm glad to have order in there. I'm....exhausted.

Here are the after photos. I give you the tamed Studio:



The layout is much better and I'm actually much happier with the work tables I have. Which is weird because I drastically reduced the amount of work surface I had from before but it all feels usable now.

The bin underneath the table on the left is from IKEA's kid section. I had to endure a woman gushing about them as she told me they were a godsend for organizing all her kids junk. I think she wanted to swap kids stories. I opted to not tell her that I was buying them to organize my skull bead and mixed media collection.

And here is a picture of what makes me REALLY happy, my design wall:


Its FULL! Its a small board but it really makes me all warm and fuzzy. (Hey Leann, see your RR block there in the middle? Told you it was safe...)

I'm ready to start working again. I love that I'm surrounded by so much artwork, both my own as well as pieces I've collected along the way. Its my own little slice of heaven.

Will it stay this way? I'm sure it will get messy again, I'd be a dirty liar if I said it wouldn't. But I think I've got a fighting chance at keeping it better under control. Its the best layout I've had so far and the way things are organized is really quite cool.

Let's see if I can skew the score in my favor...