The Studio

​“Get in your studio!”  You could’ve heard me telling this to my students in Watsonville, California all of the time.  Back when we could meet in person, it meant—go to your own headspace, block out the ramblings of others, allow your brain to consume your hands and create-you beautiful creative souls.
 
Now, as I am preparing to teach virtually-it means the same thing: let your other stuff go, get into your head and let your soul sing.
 
I need to practice what I teach!  I have been in the process of a lot of changes over the past 8 months and the studio, at times, has eluded me.  My studio has been a staging ground for the boxes that hold all of the things I can’t seem to let go from an oversized wooden spoon and fork to every pastel known to man.  I’ve been packing for 6 months so I could join my husband in Florida.
 
I JUST MOVED, LIKE RIGHT NOW.  But, no-I can’t do anything as simple as just a cross country move.  Nope.  I also, along with my husband, dropped our 18-year-old son off to live in a dorm apartment, alone in Los Angeles and we took the long way to Orlando seeing Utah (I know its way north, but its UTAH.) We drove through the falling ashes out of California into Nevada, through Utah, into New Mexico and Arizona- through Texas and Louisiana and into our new home state of Florida.  The long drive with Ed and our dog Fred was just what I needed.  No daily lists to accomplish, no tape to put on boxes and a big change of scenery.  I’m in Florida now and it’s taken me a couple of weeks to regroup and breathe.  I have to admit, I was in a little bit of a fog.  At first, I wanted to call it a “funk”-but that wasn’t it.  It was smoke filled fog.  I was so “out of my studio” that my brain kicked into project manager/ problem solving mode.  I can do that stuff-it comes naturally, but not being in the studio to balance it out made me narrow, and foggy.  But now, after a much needed rest, getting ready for my classes to start-online-with my former students in Watsonville, California (I am THRILLED!!!) and getting some much needed rest along with the sauna that is Florida right now, I said to my dog Fred today—"I can’t wait to start painting again!” That felt good.  No more fog—just a pilot light that has been lit to spark my next adventures as an empty nester and new girl in town.
 
I think I’m going to love Orlando.