the Great Purge

i have been working up a sweat in my studio...purging, organizing, throwing out this, boxing up that for someone who i know wants it...etc. much dust has been kicked up...old dust....and i found myself voiceless and congested today, soooo - a sick day to finish the job was in order. and aside from having everything neat and organized again, there's been a bonus to all this work...a redefining of myself as an artist, and also of what type of art makes my jets fire. i have boxes of silk painting supplies and latex and mould making supplies and plaster and beeswax and, you get the picture. all very different from each other. so it was no wonder that i approached my table confused! one of my favorite shows on TV stars the guy from Hell's Kitchen, but in this show he goes into failing restaurants and turns them around. one of the most common mistakes they make (besides cockroaches in the refried beans - no lie) is the menu is too large and varied for the chef to keep control of. it dawned on me that my studio, and approach to art was the same. (the menu part, not the cockroach part). so as i purge, i'm seeing and feeling what excites me...is it the lineup of Golden acrylic tubes? the (now) neat stack of specialty papers? the (now organized) magazine images and drawings set to collage? the rows of candy colored roving? and in that almost-meditative purge i am re-welcoming my creative spirit back to a clean space where it can speak without all the extraneous shouting from the materials. in the past artless months, i've actually imagined some beautiful pieces. and now i realize that in order to being them to life, i have to give them the proper space they need, and to narrow the choices of materials. sounds counterproductive, eh? but not so. if i know i can only work in, say, fabric, then i'll construct the mental imagine accordingly. if i have a choice of painting it or sculpting it in plaster or metal or assemblage or fabric, then the choices are too many, and nothing will get done...i'll spend more time trying to decide the materials, then lose interest in the project because i'm frustrated before i even begin. so there's been a lot of learning about myself art-wise, and otherwise. my mentor, Wendy Ellertson, has a series of pictures of her 9-foot dragon on her blog...amazing! yes ...9 FEET. click on her link to the right and check it out! we have gentle snowflakes falling here. the temp is in the low 20's, which is an improvement over the past few days. diva is resting after her walk. we went through an evening and half day today of re-establishing her routine. that involved much button-pushing and wolf-howling, but she's settled in again. i woke up this morning to her furry little head pressed against my cheek, sharing my pillow. i ask you - how am i supposed to go to work and leave that precious moment behind? L.