Space

I count myself to be very lucky these days.
I was painting away this evening in my little studio, when it came to my attention that not everybody has the kind of space i now have.
I say now, since this has not always been the case. For years I had to make do with someone else’s space which was more than likely a table in their kitchen. And then when I got my own home nearly 10 years ago where I still reside today. I was doing it on my kitchen table!
To me this was perfectly acceptable and for 9 years it was.
Whenever I had guests to stay for dinner, I used to have to throw my paints and brushes, palette knives, jars of water, canvases, inks, cloths and various ‘mark-making’ implements somewhere that wasn’t going to accidentally find their way into the food I had so lovingly prepared, or where the cats and dogs could walk all over and spread what paint I hadn’t managed to spill, all over the rest of the house.
But last year, my landlord decided to convert the remaining 18th century barn he had which backs onto my courtyard into an office. Up until then, I had been using it as my very own huge store shed. It had a dirt floor, rats I was sure hid beneath the flint walls and in the summer, Swallows used to nest amongst the beams. But deep down, I felt it could be made into something more useful like my very own studio!
So when my landlord announced last year that he was going to get the place converted and would I move my ‘junk’ my heart sunk. My dreams of a grand open space with skylights and windows from floor to ceiling with heating and running water smashed to smithereens.
So I was over the moon when he then turned round to say once the floor was concreted and the stud walls put in place, I could still have access to a part of it.

So a year down the line I have made that space my own again. I have to be careful though. I cannot use it ‘officially’ due to building regulations.
I have to still share it with none existent bats (part of the agreement for allowing my landlord to convert the building was to place bat boxes in my part of the barn)
But what I have been able to do is put roof insulation in. Eventually when money allows, I will put in a better lighting system instead of the two measly light bulbs I currently have. I may even get a little gas heater for the winter.
Its not exactly the state of the arts kind of studio I had in mind, but I don’t care. What this space allows me to do is to walk away from my work when I need without having to clear up each time.
As much as I love what I do, sometimes even I need a break from painting and by having a break means to not have it on view to remind me of how crappy a painting might be going at that point in time.
 So when I go in my kitchen these days, I can cook, I can have a clear kitchen table I can have guests for dinner, I can really have ‘space’.
So when artists say they don’t have the space, I think what they really mean is; they have the space, just not the room to shut the door when it all gets a bit too intense.