Computer Day

I’ve spent the day at the computer. My brain is numb. I think I accomplished some of the things I wanted to. I worked on this blog, as my merry band of loyal readers will notice. I have changed the name, theme, categories, and I’ve added tags.  Ever since I started a blog, I’ve ignored tags altogether; but gradually, search has become more important to me. I spent the afternoon going through all my old posts changing categories and adding tags. Its stultifying. I need a nap, I just had coffee and it didn’t help.

I went into my website and cleaned up some things. A few weeks ago I started to build some new pages there, but had left it incomplete, slightly messy, but it’s cleaner now. I updated the dates for the Designing Weavers sale in November, so you see I’m on top of things.

The day started with me answering an email – Nicki’s email about the DW meeting agenda for next week. Then I started to work on a submission for a group show, and I’m actually pleased with what I got done today on that project.

This is all complicated by a little vision problem I’m having. I went to the eye doc last week to get it checked and he said it should resolve itself soon. It hasn’t started to resolve yet. And in the last few days I find I can’t view the computer out of the middle range of my glasses as I’m supposed to. I have to focus from the lower lenses, which is supposed to be for close-up work. I’ve been scooting my chair real close to the desk and tilting my head up so I can look at the screen out of the bottom of my glasses. My neck and shoulders are a bit tired. I’m gonna go rest, then when Irv gets home we’ll watch the Jeopardy champions play against the Watson computer.

The After Pictures

 

The Before Picture

 

 It’s past due time I posted the after pictures of the Studio Move. First, let me review the before picture.

 The walls were a light, dirty yellow. The lighting was a really ugly ceiling fan with a four-blub fixture.

The 4′ x 8′ work table was in a corner, so the back half was essentially unreachable and I used it for storage. It was also covered with manilla pattern paper.

How did I ever design in there? I would put a piece of white paper on the table to lay out colors. I would take things to other parts of the house to see them in daylight.  

 

 

 

 

 

Sam's new room

 

 

 

 

 The New Studio

The old room was 11′ x 11′ 6″. The new one is 12′ 6′ x 13′ 2″.

 

The walls are painted white, we put up two flourescent light fixtures, and I now have access to three sides of the table. You see the computer at the end of the tabel? That’s where I’m sitting right now, typing.

 

By putting the table away from a corner, it’s like getting a second 24″ x 8′ table. However, it also meant I had to find other places to put all the stuff that was stored on the top of the table.

 

This was solved in part by getting a new small bakers rack for the corner between the table and closet. And as you can see, the wire cube book shelf is still on the table top.

 

You can kind-of see I have a white flannel covered bulletin board on the closet door. This was in the old studio, on the closet door. I made it  and it was hinged so it could swing open the full width of the closet. It was covered with flannel on the inside and outside. The idea was that I could lay out designs on the flannel, and fold the board closed when I wasn’t working on it. But I never fully utilized it.

 

You see, I was going to make art quilts when I went into the fiber art classes at CSUN.  My background, long before I learned to weave, was sewing. I was a patternmaker in the garment industry here in Los Angeles before I went back to school to get my BA in Art. That’s why I have two industrial sewing machines. The rulers hanging next to the closet door in the top picture are left over from patternmaking.

 

It’s also why I still have two dress forms. There they are, crammed into the closet behind the small baker’s rack, in a place that will be very hard to get them out of if I ever want to use them.

Which is all very curious since, as I have been known to say, “I don’t do garments.” They caused me quite a conundrum as I was moving in.

 

Professional organisers have a rule of thumb: if you haven’t used something in over two years, you should get rid of it because you aren’t likely to ever use it again. Those forms were in the same place in the closet in my old studio. Not only had I not used them in over two years, I would forget I even owned them!

 

I stood there for a long time one day arguing with myself. I hadn’t filled up all the drawers with yarn yet. I had the dress forms in the closet. I put the bakers rack together, but hadn’t put anything on the shelves yet. And I knew that those forms are going to be damned hard to get out of there (I’ll have to lift them up over the baker’s rack while swinging them over my head to clear the work table) if I ever decide to use them.

 

But IF, the argument goes, I ever want to make a garment, I can’t do it without having a dress form to drape it on.  

-But I haven’t made a garment in over TEN YEARS- 

But WHAT IF  I want to? If I get rid of them, then I won’t have one to use.

-So, get rid of one of them-

But which one? The one that’s in better shape is a size 5 petite, and the one that’s a more realistic size is falling apart.

-Maybe get a used size 12 or 14 downtown, in the garment district-

They still cost money, even used, and I may never use it.

-Get rid of both of them, free up the space in the closet, and get one of those El Cheapo one’s from Joanne’s IF I ever make garments again-

Oh no, not that! -No, just put them in the closet. Keep the door closed-

 

It took me two weeks to unpack and move in.

The Warping Board is still behind the door.

 

 

new storage area

 

The cabinets from the old studio are hung higher, so I can walk under them. I got myself a new step stool so I can reach the high shelves.

 

 

There are two large windows facing east and south. I found some wonderful fabric shades at Lowe's that let in bright white light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cleaning Day

Sammy left this morning. It’s her last semester of college. I felt a surge of emotion as we loaded her stuff into her car. But, that could be hormonal. I woke up at 1:00 am having a hot flash and a surge of anxiety that I won’t be able to fit all of my enormous amount of shit into my new studio. And I was having hot flashes as I was taping up some boxes for Sam.

I have been moving my stuff into my studio all week, and I’m still not done. It is already two weeks since we had the painting done. That day was supposed to be cleaning day, but I cancelled. It is cleaning day again and I can’t cancel again. I need to get done.

I still have some boxes in the dining and living rooms, and I’m running out of space in the new studio. I said I would go through the fabrics as I moved them back in – I managed to pare down the stash by one box. Now I have 30 empty boxes in the dining room I’ve got to crush and do something with. And there are still boxes to unpack and stuff to put away – hence the anxiety driven hot flash at 1:00 am.

And. .  today I find myself in a new reality: I am truly alone in the house. The kids are both away at college and the dog is gone.

In Transition

I’ve gotten behind in updating again. Since Thursday we’ve been very busy moving back into our new rooms.

Sam's new room as of Thursday morning, with new paint, light fixture and Carpet.

My new studio with new paint, light fixtures, white cellular fabric blinds.

 

On Wednesday, the day after the painting was done, we put up the new light fixtures and the blinds in my studio. Since then, we’ve been moving in. We got most of Sam’s room done first because she has to get resettled before she goes back to school next week. On Saturday, with Irv’s help, we anchored her bookcases to the wall and put up her curtain rod. She got mostly moved in.

 

 

I’m going to reconstruct her two sets of curtains to make one set for her window which is twice as wide and half as high as the windows in her old room. I want to get it done by the time she leaves, so I’ve got to really get moving this week and get my sewing machines, tools, thread and such unearthed from the boxes in the living room. Or dining room – I really don’t remember where anything is. Irv also put up my wall cabinets on Saturday.

 

 

I’m still figuring out where everything is going to go. Over the years in my old studio I learned that little logistical decisions have a big impact on functionality. For instance, where  you store the ironing board when you’re not using it can make it a hassle when you need to get it out to use it.

 

I still need to do some woodworking before I can start moving the contents of all those shelves and cabinets into the studio. The tall white cabinet that sits on the floor needs a wood base to raise it up 1/2″ and make it more stable on the carpet; then I can anchor it to the wall.

I need to rework the support for the plywood “floor” under the big work table. This is a major storage area for heavy boxes of fabric.

New baker's rack on the left will greatly increase my storage capacity.

 

Stay tuned. . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of Wallpaper

When we moved into this house (16 years ago) there was wallpaper in every room except the living room. I removed it myself in our master bedroom in 2000, during the Elian Gonzalez episode. This was also when I began to discover the public radio station we’re members of, KPCC. I remember this because I had the radio on while I steamed and scraped two layers of 40-year-old wallpaper for three days, and all they talked about all day, every day was poor little Elian. It started with Larry Mantel on Air Talk, continued with Juan Williams on Talk of the Nation, with Kitty Felde picking it up on Talk of the City, which ended just in time for Marketplace to look at the business angle of the story, only to hand it off to All Things Considered who drove it into the night.

Sam's new bedroom. Why have just one layer of wallpaper when you can just as easily have two or three?

I decided I had enough of wallpaper removal, so a  few years later when we repainted the kids’ rooms, we had the painter remove it. There were three layers of wallpaper in both rooms – AND the bathroom, which we were redoing at the same time. What a nightmare that turned out to be! I’m still glad our painter came back to work for us after that.

A year of two later we did the hallway (only one wallpaper layer), dining room (one layer only one wall above the chair rail), and living room (no wallpaper, phew!). To paint in this house is to first remove wallpaper.

All of this is the reason we haven’t repainted the family room and kitchen – where even the ceiling is wallpapered. Anyone who has been in my house and wondered why the kitchen and family room haven’t been updated, that’s why.

 The same painter has done all these jobs. He has also painted the outside of the house, and repainted the trim a couple of years ago. We got his name from a friend who has had him do, I think, three different houses. We’ve recommended him to three or four different friends who were all very happy with his work and his pricing. Anyone in LA who wants to know can contact me directly and I’ll give you his number.

Another wall of paper gone.

Painting Day

Sunday morning 7:00 am. About an hour after this, the latest storm rolled in and it rained all day, until Monday morning.

By the end of the day Saturday we had moved as much as we could move, and still have places for both kids to sleep. Only Sam’s bed remained in her old room sharing the space with the base frame of my 45″ floor loom, the tables for both industrial sewing machines, and the top of my large, 4′ x 8′ work table. I wanted to get these larger and heavier things moved as close to their new locations while I still had Michael’s help. This way, Sammy and I will only have to move them a few feet to get them where they’re going to end up – besides there really was no other place to put them. Earlier there had been some discussion about me getting rid of the industrial single needle (straight stitch) machine. But, alas, I decided to keep it. (oh, you all know you’ve done the same thing at one time or another!)

Sunday morning Michael drove off into the sunrise.

 

Yesterday the painter called to say he’s coming today. Sam and I stripped her bed and moved the mattress and box spring  out to the dining room; took down her curtains, hardware, and light fixture. Soon after that we crossed some kind of linguistic threshold. My old studio is now officially her room, and her old room is officially now my studio.

The base of the floor loom, table top, industrial machine tables, in the new studio.

 

In the afternoon we went shopping for the new fixtures and hardware. My new studio faces south and east, and the south-facing window gets direct sun all day. It’s not the ideal orientation for the artiste, but one works with what one has, right? I got some white cellular fabric blinds at Lowe’s. I think they’ll still let a lot of light through, and I’ll probably leave them down most of the time.

 

The single window in Sam’s new room faces some trees along the side of our neighbor’s house, and only gets the direct sun for about a half hour in the late afternoon. She’s actually happy she won’t get the harsh morning sun when she’s trying to sleep in, and I’m looking forward to lots of bright white light. I’ll deal with the summer heat when it gets here.

 

It’s going to be a few days before the new carpet will come for Sam’s room. We’ll start setting up my new studio on Wednesday. It’s good I’ll get a head start moving my cabinets and incredible amount of sh– back into my studio. Otherwise she might never find her stuff in the living room.

Ready for Painting

None of us can believe the amount of shi stuff we had in our two rooms. The truth is most of it is mine.  I didn’t go through my stuff, I just packed and moved it.

Looking from the dining room into the living room.

I did a major clean out of my studio a little less than two years ago, so I’ve been operating on the theory that I didn’t need to purge. But after the first day of hauling boxes out and stacking them in the dining room, I revised that idea.

 

I’m going to go through and weed out my materials when I move into my new studio. I think I need to take a serious look at my fabric stash. I need to make some serious decisions about what I really am likely to use, and give away the rest. It should go to someone who will make use of it.

 

Did I mention we are having both rooms painted? That’s why we moved out of both at the same time. We’re getting new carpet for Sam’s new room.

 

When we moved in this house, we didn’t repaint the room that would become my studio, nor, as you can see, did we remove the so-very-ugly wallpaper. And there just is really nothing I can say about the light fixture. I’ll finally have a studio with white walls, and proper lighting.

This is the same corner as in the "before" picture.

This is why we waited till after Christmas day to really start packing. There is a dining room table in there somewhere.

Now, here’s the thing that concerns me: Michael is going back to school tomorrow, Sunday. The painters are coming Monday or Tuesday. The carpet layers are coming the day after the painter. Michael helped move all this sh-t stuff out of these rooms. Sam and I are going to have to move it all back in by ourselves.

The unbelievable amount of stuff spilled over into Michael's room.

 

This is a massive job, no wonder I put it off for three years.

Moving the Studio: the Packing Phase

Picking up where I left off. . .

This brings us about up to the decision to move our rooms. Having the house to myself was almost as great as I had hoped, but it just highlighted my problem with a lack of space– especially with those two large bedrooms sitting not empty, but unslept in.

I’ve been telling my daughter since her freshman year in college that at some point we were going to have to talk about trading rooms. When school started this year we began talking about what she wants to do after graduation, and she wants to get a job and stay in the Bay Area. She wants to work a while before going to grad school. Somewhere along the way I began to get tempted to trade rooms over this winter break.

When Sam and I did talk about it, it became clear that this is a perfect time to make the move. So we jumped in and began packing.

Packing in progress

The thing you should know about the before picture in my last post is that it only shows one corner of the room. Every wall was stacked almost floor to ceiling just like that with an incredible amount of stuff.

We had my sister-in-law and her boyfriend over for brunch on Christmas day. The next day, Sammy and I went out shopping for light fixtures, blinds, shelving units, and other stuff.

On Monday, December 27th, we began packing and moving stuff out of both of our rooms. We got an estimate for painting, color swatches, carpet samples.

All of this was under the big table, and will be again.

By Friday, I had my old studio (Sammy’s new room) emptied of sh - stuff, and it was time to take down the shelves, cabinets, and bulliten boards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We moved everything into the dining room and living room. At different times on Thursday and Friday, you could hear one or the other of us call out, “Oh my god, there’s all this stuff in here, too!” I weeded out some books and gave them to my weaving guild, Southern California Handweavers Guild. Claudia, who manages the guild library came over to get them. She smiled knowingly at our piles of stuff in the living and dining rooms. She just recently went through the same process with her oldest daughter.

 

We managed to completely fill the living room, leaving a path to the back doors.

Moving the Studio

The Before Picture

 

I last promised an update back in September, so I have quite a backlog of news to report before I start on new news – I’m trading rooms with my daughter: my studio for her larger bedroom. Yes, we’re in the process of a massive moving operation.

My son had a good first quarter.  He made friends, got along with his roommates well, and even lost weight. He found he didn’t eat as many meals per week as he had on his plan, and he started playing racquetball and working out regularly. He also got straight A’s.

My husband and I went on a trip to Canada and the East Coast right after Michael left for school. We took a cruise from Montreal to Boston, then spent two days in Boston and New York, and four days in Washington DC. In Washington we visited my aunt and uncle, and my cousin and her family. We went with my aunt up to central Pennsylvania one day to my hometown. There we visited my father’s two cousins who he grew up with; they were more like brothers. It was a really nice trip.

We came home to a house with no children in it. It was just me and the old dog for about five weeks from mid October to Thanksgiving weekend. I concentrated on making jewelry for the holiday sales. I had five pieces of “assemblage” work accepted in an exhibition at Ontario (Ontario, California) Airport. A man traveling on business saw my work there and bought some jewelry from the Arts That Work website. I got the notice that I am one of 23 people chosen (out of 127 applicants who submitted 187 proposals) to curate an exhibition at either LAX or Ontario Airport in the coming year.

 On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the weekend of the Designing Weavers holiday sale, Clancy couldn’t walk more than a few steps without falling. I had been using a towel as a sling to help him up over the past few months, but now he was growling and snapping at us. He wasn’t able to get himself outside, and he wasn’t letting us help him up. these were the signs that I had always said would mean the end.

 When I came home from the sale in the evening we rigged up a sling with handles so we could help him walk. We talked to the kids and they wanted to see him one last time. But they also decided they wanted to be with us when we took him to the vet, so I made an appointment for Saturday. It was not our regular vet, they were closed the whole weekend.

He fell in his food bowl.

 My husband started to pass a kidney stone on Thanksgiving morning. The kids went to their aunt’s house without us, and we missed dinner. We were, in fact, in the ER all day Saturday and came home just in time to take the dog to the vet. It was sad, but it was time.

 We had half the box of dog biscuits left, which we gave to our next door neighbor for their very large dog.

 The week after Thanksgiving we had our family Hanukkah party. Hanukkah was extremely early this year, from December 1-8. Both kids made it home for the party. My daughter finished her final papers early and was home for the winter break by December 3^rd. My son went back to Riverside for finals week and came home on the 11^th.

 This brings us about up to the decision to move our rooms.

More tomorrow. . .

Clancy, 1997-2010

Big Day

The day my son, Michael, goes to college has arrived. He spent the day packing. His sister came home from school for the weekend so we could celebrate her birthday, which is Monday – she’s turning 21.

We went out for dinner with My father in law and his girlfriend, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend, and Sammy’s best friend. Michael has just finished packing his car, and has gone to bed. He’s leaving early for the 80 mile drive out to Riverside. His assigned time to check in to his dorm is 8:00 am, and he wants to get there as early as possible so he can get the bottom bunk.

Irv and I are driving out separately and a little later. Sammy has an 11:20 flight back to Oakland; her friend, Michelle, is taking her to the airport. We’ll be returning home to an empty nest tomorrow afternoon. Then we’re taking off on vacation later in the week.

People have been asking me all summer what I feel about having an empty nest. I keep saying I can’t wait. I have Michael’s permission to get the extra twin bed out of his room so I can set up a photography area there. I’ve been waiting for this day for a year. Michael only needed four classes last year, so he came home at 1:00 every day. I kept saying, “I’ve got to work,” and we went out to lunch a lot, and we watched a lot of tv.

We’ve been making jokes about it all summer: I’ll have to start using the step stool in the kitchen again because he won’t be here to reach things for me; and I may never watch tv during the day again because he’s the one who always turned it on. Earlier this week he asked me, “Now, do you remember how to turn on the PS3, how to get into Netflix?” I told him yes, but I’m not sure I do.

Thursday evening one of the other artists at the Sustainable Works fundraiser told me she has some neighbors who are also at this stage, and she asked them what it’s like; and they said it’s grrrreeeaaat. We’re not helicopter parents. Michael drove himself out to Riverside for his orientation – he left two hours after I got home from my Albuquerque road trip. He’s allowed to take his car, they have plenty of parking at UCR, and the parking permit is inexpensive enough. I want him to have his car so he can go out and do things on weekends.

All this being said, do you think I’ll get a little emotional tomorrow. Oh, yeah, count on it. Will having the house to myself be as great as I’ve been saying it will be, and will I ever watch tv again (and will Clancy make it until his box of dog biscuits runs out)?

I’ll have to let you know.