Arvada, CO
Between other projects, networking, a bit of teaching, and training a rebellious teenage golden retriever, I’ve been slowly pulling together the various components of my biggest physical project on record: turning the previous owner’s detached wood shop into my personal art emporium for painting, drawing, and gatherings of artists. This 1200 square foot space is now divided into my personal studio and an open drawing space for guests.
Since I needed to build walls anyway, I opted for the only slightly more difficult project of putting together mobile storage walls that will give my large paintings a safe place to live, and also allow me to reconfigure the space for events, or as my needs change in the future. For this, I called my good friend Brent Dilworth, who has designed and constructed a number of such walls for Gallery 1261 and Abend. We drew up some plans, made a pretty epic run to Home Depot involving truck rental (one of my most loathed chores—thanks for the help, Diamond) and the amazing added muscle and assistance of Julie and Diamond. After they kindly devoted an entire day of labor and moral support to my project, I was able to move along with much of the other construction items on my own except when I needed someone to stand on joints while I drilled (thanks mom) or catch huge pieces of plywood as they dropped from the circular saw (thanks husband) and finally assembled the many, heavy pieces. It’s lovely to see these two 10x8 ft walls rolling freely on their caster wheels! Can’t wait to drywall them and fill them with art.
In even more exciting news, the windows are in, and it turns out I will be painting in a soothing, green glow (a bit challenging for color mixing, admittedly) during all the leafed-out seasons of the trees, and what I anticipate will be exquisitely soft, ambient northwest light bouncing off snow and through leafless limbs in the winter. I knew these windows would be amazing, but I truly underestimated just HOW amazing. They have magically transformed the space from a big, dark cave full of someone else’s energy into an airy, soothing place full of creative potential. I recently finished (thanks to mom, again—best helper ever) repairing and resealing the newly finished cement floor that the contractors badly damaged, and mudding over a jigsaw job they insisted on calling professional drywalling. But in the blissful absence of contractors, I am finding the rest of the construction to be both satisfying and empowering, and each hour makes me feel more at home in this incredible space.
A gigantic party will be forthcoming as soon as it’s done, or done enough to done to start hosting. The full-weekend open-studio will definitely include a day of free figure drawing, open to all, so stay tuned (and sign up for my mailing list if you haven’t already) for dates and details!! Come sit on my brand-spanking-new, homemade drawing horses. :)
