PDX Urban Sketchers Meeting at my Studio (03-31-12)

Today, a small group of the Portland Urban Sketchers braved the cold weather to come sketch at my studio. Although we had initially planned to work on some sketches of the yard, the cold made us retreat to the coziness of the studio, where we enjoyed each others' company with cake, snacks, and lemonade.

I have to admit that I enjoyed the selfish pleasure to be able to peek into other people's sketchbooks, and admire their skills and proficiency at architecture and urban scenes...

2011 Pen and Ink Project: My Little Studio (11-30-11)

My studio had humble beginnings as a workshop or storage space for one or another previous owner. When I first saw it on the day of the real estate open house, the late morning light reflected in the colorful glass pebbles mixed in the gravel gave the building a magical look.
I eagerly climbed up the steps, expecting to find a wonderful art workspace. My fantasy came to a crashing stop when I opened the door: boxes and old furniture piled up everywhere, water dripping from the ceiling.
One of the first projects we undertook after we moved in was to clean this outbuilding. It was a dark, unwelcoming place, dirty, home to hideous spiders and carpenter ants. It took quite a while, but it eventually got cleaned up, painted inside, redecorated, with new floors installed and sealed.
The studio is now a great work space to share with students and friends, with enough space to store art supplies, visual journaling books, large tables and chairs, and many objects, even vintage items for resale... It is a magical space!

What drawing means to me (03-02-11)

As I've slowly been organizing my new studio, I finally got to the boxes that had been packed up since September 2009, when we sold our house in SE Portland. Obviously, life went on without these things, and it was manageable. Yet, I've always disliked the thought that if you haven't worn an item of clothing for a year, you need to discard it. It's not that I am a collector, but I need the familiarity of objects I like to feel grounded.

So, I embarked on my box opening project with some anxiety. What if everything inside was now meaningless? What if the images, the art supplies, the small objects just turned out to be junk? More pointedly, if the things I once liked had become irrelevant, would I in turn feel irrelevant?

Opening box after box of art supplies, paints, markers, pencils, I found some treasures: the box of watercolors my grand-father sent me when I was 23, the metal tubes twisted and mangled, the paints hardened to chunks, and another box my mother sent me around the same time, still pristine, still unused, and still evoking the same feelings of wonder when I carefully open it.

I found my journals, the oldest one from when I was about 17 years old, full of goody-girly nonsense, and its existence brings out feelings of regrets over the solemn sacrificial burning at age 16, of two previous journals whose every page was filled with rage and anger, expressed in a rainbow of red, blue, or green fountain pen ink.

I found my sketchbooks, all of them, and placed them pell-mell on a bookcase shelf, and this is the first time I can see all of them side by side, and the real space they take. The first sketchbook I bought in 1997 was small and black, filled with timid and hesitant drawings of people, followed by an unimaginative series of more identical black sketchbooks.

My sketchbooks of choice now are my reliable hand-bound sketchbooks my dad buys in Budapest and sends in an occasional package, along with dark chocolate, sweet licorice or violet candy, and Speculoos cookies or spread from Belgium. (A side note here about the cover patterns: my dad clearly favors historical Hungarian motifs, while I prefer colorful images, like flowers or objects, but I can't complain since these are the best sketchbooks ever.)

My present sketchbook

I've been more impatient with drawing lately, ready to move on to another page, taking less time to work on individual pages. I also use less color, while I would actually prefer more color in my books. But in the case of fashion sketches, I find that a few lines say it all, the place has been visited, it's time to do something else, like another sketch...so turning the page is getting easier.

Moving In! (01-30-11)

What a day! I finally started moving things in the studio! Of course, it's total mayhem inside. It's going to take me a while to sort all this stuff and get it put away.

Sturio Interior Views

From left to right and top to bottom:
- Photo1: The big table in the foreground was displayed in pouring rain in front of an interior decorator's shop in Sellwood; it was a bargain at $60.
- Photo1: The gorgeous pine wardrobe in the corner was found on Craigslist.
- Photos 3 and 6: The big cabinet with the doors and shelves was a rare find from the Rebuilding Center.
- Photo 5: Of course, there is the Warped Table, a unique find from Tropical Salvage; they thought I was crazy when I bought it (for a pittance); the table is so freakishly wavy, it's like something one would expect the Mad Hatter to use.
- Photo 4 and 5: The small Restoration Hardware bookcase was only $60 on Craigslist.
- Photo 4: I got the library card file cabinet years ago when Jackson County Library was converting to computers.

Final Touches: Baseboards (01-24-11)

Everything about the Shed/Studio Revamp project has been meant to be done economically. Of course, this has not worked out in many cases due to contractor-related surprises, but that was the initial plan. Since Gary lost his job recently, we really are on a shoestring. 

We went to the Rebuilding Center hoping to find some materials we could use for baseboards. It was disheartening to look through the warehouse, and see only piles of junk stacked up against the walls, old cracked planks thick with chipped or peeling paint, nothing that one could imagine to be useable... Finally, we located some beat-up siding, and figured out that it could work out...despite the $30 cost (now, I know, that's a minimal charge when it comes to construction materials, but it was in pretty bad shape).

Once home, Gary braved the cold to install the makeshift baseboards in the studio. The look is now genuinely shabby chic!

Work on the Studio Exterior (12-31-10)

In retrospect, the hardest part of the project has been to find reliable contractors; in addition to Gary, this carpenter is the sixth contractor to work on the shed/studio.

Replacing the missing battens

The Lights are Installed! (11-20-10)

I never thought this would ever happen, but we finally got the lights installed in the studio (can't really call it a "shed" anymore).

The big chandelier was in the dining room when we bought the house, and I immediately hated it with a passion; it was too big for the small room. ( It made me think of a monstrous space alien mothership looming in the sky, with tiny people running in panic on the ground.) But in this space, it looks just right.

The light in the foreground is a lovely small 3-light chadelier I got it at Hippo Hardware many years ago. It was on the upstairs landing in our old house, set with flickering flame bulbs (it drove Gary nuts, since it didn't light the staircase at all).


Next in the project is coating the OSB floors with polyurethane, to protect them and give them some sheen.

Contractor Update (10-01-10)

Well, it turns out that the genius carpenter was also a flake. So annoying.
After installing the French doors, redoing the ceiling, setting in a large decorative beam supported by two beautiful rustic posts, and laying the floor out in the studio (aka "the shed"), he disappeared, leaving work unfinished on the outside of the structure. Pretty annoying since he left work unfinished.
I could see it coming a while back: he was getting here later every time, yet leaving earlier. There always was an excuse of some sort; he seemed flustered; he "was having personal problems," "was busy at his other job," etc. I almost expected him to say that the dog had eaten his homework.
Now I am in the frustrating position of having to pay someone else yet to finish what he didn't.