My Studio

from a 2002 journal entry - before we arrived in Paducah

In the very beginning, when I allowed myself to fantasize about living the life of an artist, the studio was front and center in those dreams. It would be a magical place, saturated with a spirit of creativity, adventure, and excitement, a place where ideas and aspirations could become reality. I imagined a large space filled with paintings and drawings in various stages of completion, walls covered with sketches and notes to myself, shelves overflowing with paints, brushes, and art books, and an enormous pile of clutter, all there as an inspiration for work yet to come. And of course there would be music, music for the soul, to nurture all that wonderful work.

I have had the good fortune to see all of this come true in two studios that have served me very well in the past 20 years. They were quite different in terms of size and location (the first one a small space opening directly onto a city street, and the second much larger, looking out over several hundred acres of rolling country side) but each one fulfilling all of the above criteria. And now I find myself planning for my third, and most likely final studio, and once again my mind is filled with images and ideas of what it will be.

Physically the new studio will share most of the characteristics of its predecessors, albeit arranged somewhat differently. Two differences will be the addition of a gallery on one end and a small workshop on the other. But the biggest difference will be non-physical...the new studio will represent the destination of the journey that I began so many years earlier. This will be the place that provides the opportunity to truly claim my destiny, the place to do the work that I have pursued for so many years. It is here that I will or will not become the artist I hope to be