"Choosing the Colors"Charles Courtney Curran
circa 1923
I noticed not long ago how very small my studio is. I don't know why it came as such a shock. I've been working in there for well over a year, through all four seasons and their change in light, air and visual qualities. Perhaps I noticed because I have a sudden urge to expand my time and the type of work I do in it? I'm brimming with enthusiasm and ideas again and the room no longer seems large enough to contain it?
I've had my ups and downs with my studio. Most of the time it acts as a haven, a place to go to escape from the realities of life. Then there are those times when it feels like a war zone where nothing is going right. To enter the room is to do battle with a project that refuses to resolve itself. But I've had a new insight of late. My thoughts had wandered to why I had such a desire lately to work in there. It is so drab outside, I noted, but the studio does not have to be drab. It is full of color and shapes and ideas, not stagnant like the dirty snow, the grey/brown landscape outside my window. It's cold and dank out there, warm and inviting in the studio. I found myself likening the studio to a cocoon at times, protective while something beautiful grows and matures inside it.
Now there's a lovely thought, I decided. The cocoon of my studio nurtures and allows me to struggle and change and make something quite different from the parts I start out with. And then I can emerge like a butterfly, perhaps to the surprise of those who thought they knew who I was and what I was doing.
2 comments:
I like your butterfly. Just a hint of shape that your eye can enjoy as colour and shape before it begins to link up the pieces and say..ah yes, a butterfly.
Ah, the very small studio...mine too is small, possibly because of the many things stored in it. And the UFOs with their clamour of "why haven't you finished me" make it feel crowded! It's good to read that your studio feels inviting, a place of possibilities.
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