I’m taking a few days off work. Call it a stay-cation if you like. There are many things I want to accomplish in that short time, but I know I’ll be fortunate if I get a few of them done. Last night I started a studio clean-up, I mean a major reorganization of my workspace. It’s a small space. I remember those years when I was on Niagara St and I had the luxury of a roomy workspace. Now I paint in the basement of our house. I’m not complaining. It’s actually a workable space and I’m comfortable there, but painting in a small space is a much different experience than painting in a larger one. For one thing, if you don’t clean up a small space regularly, it seems to get filled up with junk really quickly. It’s time to become an entropy-fighting studio-cleaning superhero. I’m giving myself tonight to get the job done.

No more stalling. I’m getting to it….right after coffee.

There was a time when clean-up was an everyday part of my painting practice – not at the end of a session but at the beginning of one. The act of sweeping and organizing before settling down to work has long helped me ease into that curiously relaxed, focus state of mind in which I make my best work. Clean up the studio; clean up the mind. Settle in. Work.