A CASCADE OF CLEARING

I want a space in which to place paintings in frames and evaluate them for gallery placement.  A nice-sized wall.  All the walls in the studio get full with paintings that are drying.  All the walls in the house have paintings that live on them (an ever-changing array.)  And the hall by the studio is full of newly finished work.  Where can I possibly do this?
In my office there is a bulletin board covered in thank you letters, postcards, and award ribbons.  It is surrounded by paintings made by my kids when they were small.  Do I need all this stuff?  No.  I put the postcards from friends into a box.  Put the best of the kids' goodies on a small wall by my door where I'll see them when I walk in.  Take a photo of the ribbons and throw them away.  Then pull the bulletin board off the wall.
So now I have my wall.  But the credenza is covered with project boxes and the file cabinet is piled to the ceiling.  Need to find a place to put this stuff away.  I dig into the closet.  This releases piles of stuff for goodwill.  Piles of unorganized office supplies. Stuff I couldn't use because I couldn't find it.  I put things in boxes and label it all.  It turns out to be a full day of sorting.
The next day is staging day.  I reward myself by setting up lots of paintings in my newly cleared space.

LIGHT BRACKETS

Photographing my art is always a chore. I have to drag out my lights on stands and clamps, lights that are stored in a precarious jumble behind a table. The cords are always tangled, and the light stands, being cheap ones, don't cooperate when I manipulate them. It takes probably an hour to set up all this stuff. So I only do it once every few months when I have enough paintings to make it worthwhile.

What if the key lights were set up all the time? My husband mounts two brackets on the walls at the far corners of the studio. I clamp two clamp lights to the brackets. The light clamps aren't strong enough, so I add a pinchy clamp from the hardware store that is so strong I can barely open it. Voila! Lights stored out of the way but also ready for use. All I need do is fasten the cords to the walls and it'll be perfect.

January Clearing 8

The studio is now organized, drawers have been cleaned, I have more floor space, and I'm beginning to feel like I can breathe in here. I have a pile on my workbench of little jobs that haven't gotten done. The procrastination pile. Mostly these things aren't very important, but when they pile up, they become more so.

The same thing happens in my office, where I waste a lot of time shuffling low-priority papers. The answer to this is simple: Take a half hour each day to

DO THE THING THAT IS IN FRONT OF ME!

January Clearing 7

I pull out the drawer of dropcloths and sheets. Nothing in this drawer is out of place. I fold everything and put it back. Suddenly there is more room in the drawer. Somehow, putting things in order makes less of things. Why can't they just stay that way? Hurry. Which creates a mess, which takes time to straighten out. Interesting loop.

Painter's tape has migrated to three different locations. I put it all in the same drawer and find that I have lots. Sometimes a perceived shortage is merely stuff in the wrong places. Food distribution, perhaps? Water? I know, painter's tape isn't going to save the world, but I'm beginning to see a lot of parallels between the mess in my studio and problems in the outside world.

January Clearing 5

Today I go through the photos. Not my digital photos, but the older ones, the film prints. There are a lot of them. I was as shutter-happy then as I am now, only now it costs a whole lot less.

The thing that strikes me about these old photos is that they aren't very good. I'm not inspired to paint from them. I am enjoying looking through them, but I can do that with the photo album, of which these are mostly duplicates. If I really need one of these pictures, the best of them are in the family albums.

I save the garden flower photos for a friend. I save the landscape photos for my oil classes, because you never know. For the time being, I save the wildflower photos for my watercolor paintings, though I may want to use my more recent photos. The rest go in the trash. My closet is pounds lighter.

I have just thrown away hours of (enjoyable) work. And feel good about it. Maybe the things we do in our lives are not as important as they seem at the time.

January Clearing 6

Came across lots of stuff. A small desktop easel, hasn't been used in 3 years. Watercolor paper that runs through the printer. Scratch tools for clayboard. Some of these will be useful for some other artist.

Cardmaking papers can go downstairs with the cardmaking stuff in the storeroom, which I get out once a year... what were they doing in my studio? Stuff seems to migrate into drawers and shelves where it cannot be found. Boxes multiply, almost like coat hangers. I am starting to let some air into the closet. My eyes begin to find useful things among the noise.

January Clearing 4

Side one of my closet. Mostly this was pretty easy. A few things in the wrong drawers, but mostly watercolor supplies.

Ran into the Gouache. Uh-oh. This is a problem. Quite a few tubes of buttery, filmy, rich-colored paint. When did I last use it? More than ten years ago. Does it fit into my current work? Not at all. If I keep the paint, it will be for play.

This is a tough decision. When I look at the paint, I have a desire to play with it. I spent good money on it. But I also have an oil painting on my easel. And a studio full of stuff on the floor that needs closet space. I decide to give the gouache away and to give myself a gift of space.

January Clearing 3

How to clear the studio? Some thoughts:
Useful for oil painting in current style: keep
Possibly useful for oil painting: maybe keep
Useful for watercolor painting in current style: keep
Useful for teaching oils: keep
Useful for teaching watercolors: keep some
Useful for acrylic collage: keep
Useful for plein air: keep
Haven't used in 3 years: consider clearing
Haven't used in 5 years: strongly consider clearing.

So... looking at boxes in the top of the studio closet:
Handmade paper: keep
Collage: keep
Texture tools: keep
Watercolor techniques reference cards: keep
Powdered dye: keep
Projector: 3 yrs. Think about this.
Roll of book cover: keep
Photos: need to go through these. I can't keep every photo I ever took, can I?
Chinese brush supplies: 5 yrs: This I can give away.

January Clearing 2

I have a bad habit of not being able to find a tool in a drawer, and buying a new one to replace the one I can't find. This fills the drawer with more stuff, and then I can't find a tool....
Remedy: take my brush drawer and remove all the brushes that I don't use any more. Perhaps my college student daughter would like these perfectly-good-used-but-not-my-favorite brushes.

January Clearing 1

It's pretty easy for paper to take over my office and studio, and even other rooms in the house. It comes in at the rate of about 15 pieces of snail mail per day, countless sales receipts, plus whatever e-mails or web pages I foolishly print. Resolved: if I can find the information easily on the internet, I do not need to store it in paper form in my house. If (as with magazine articles) I may want to refer to it later, it can be stored as a pdf on my computer. Resolved: Add as close as possible to zero paper files to my existing collection. Reduce the number of files in my house by one drawer each year, until I am down to... er... 4?

This will take some diligence. And some screening of existing files.