Surprise - Happy New Year!

Wow, I forgot I even made this blog. What a surprise. Who knows what else I've forgotten?

So the last day of 2008 - not a bad year for me - how about you? Millions hurt but I had no money to lose and no house to buy or sell. I guess that's success, as redefined these days. I laughed, I cried, celebrated, mourned, all that stuff. I made a lot of work and sold some of it.

I was looking at that pristine view of the new studio I posted initially before I started to work in it. I actually took a few photos last week of the way it looks now, a couple of years later. These are three current views.

Lots of mess but lots of work, too.

It's amazing how much stuff it takes to paint a few pictures. It starts with a selection of canvases, but you have to have bubblewrap for everything and many paints and brushes and tools. Then you move on to panels so you need wood and a saw - maybe two saws - and more tools to add to the brushes, paints, cleaners, etc., etc. And if you work in more than one medium, you need all those supplies. Of course you have completed work and books about other artists. No end to it all. No wonder stuff always expands to fill any size studio.

I was reading about Sean Scully and the buildings he owns for his studios - thousands of feet. I could fill those easily.

I could probably fill those thousands of feet just with wax balls. When will I ever use them? They do make a nice centerpiece for Thanksgiving Dinner.

Being messy is one of the reasons that encaustic appeals to me. Amazing that such glossy, pristine-looking work can come from a mess like this. What fun!