A rebuilding process

My studio re-awakens

For fear of repeating myself, I will try to avoid my usual opening statement regarding the unexpectedly hasty passage of time recently, with specific regard to that which occurred since my arrival in Edinburgh a little over a week ago. It would not do to become a cliché.

My first steps at re-finding my home-town artistic feet were taken yesterday, when I put my studio back together. In these financially constricted times, I have decided to keep my studio close to home. Very close. So close, in fact, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it is in my home. Which, to be fair, it is.
There are both positives and negatives to having a home studio. The primary positive is the easy and instant access to the studio, at all times of day and night. I have never had a daily working schedule as an artist, so around the clock easy access is greatly beneficial to my work. On the other hand, when one has a home studio one can never escape from work. As an artist who does a lot of work internally, I already have enough problems escaping from my work at the best of times. With a home studio, there is almost no escape. Other than to do outside, but that is a different matter entirely.

I've also been looking through my painting storeroom this week. There is a lot of work in it, some ranging back to my first tentative professional steps some twelve years ago. In the coming weeks, I am going to catalogue this work and decide upon its fate. Some I plan to place for sale on Etsy, a little I hope to keep hold of. For the rest, who can tell… sometimes one must simply let go and move on. We shall see.

It is that time again

I've been in Arkansas for almost three months now and in a few days I'll be heading home to Edinburgh. It is hard to believe that time has again passed so quickly, even though it does seem like that is all time does these days.

Some other future
Mixed media on board, 12x12" / 30x30cm
© 2012 Megan Chapman & Stewart Bremner.

During this visit, Megan and I created a body of work that we are both very happy with. We painted fifteen small panels, that reflect on our lives and our movements over the past year or so. The exhibition that they form, which comes down tomorrow, is also something we are happy with. In the space of a few months, we created the work, hung the show, lit it and did almost all of the promotion for it. We had always believed that we make a good team and the reception of this sold proves this.

I have had another enjoyable visit to Arkansas and even though I am ready to go home now, I also do not really want to. When I get home, I am going to have to a lot of very hard work to do, just to maintain my position on the ladder of the art world. I don't know if I have the energy for that fight just now.

I think I need a holiday!