Before...

I'm not sure if others get themselves into a mess in the studio as often or as easily as I do - but around this time I find the studio seems to have simply accumulated all the stuff of the year before and there is hardly a surface to be found anywhere.

This is how bad it looked before I began the clean up.

I had brought these trays with type home after Christmas and they had simply had to be put on the floor. You can see some chases resting on the table legs; and a box of musical scores someone had recently  given me asking if I could use the paper.

These prints and plates were all over the table; but really they were all over a proofing press Barry had cleaned up and fixed for me because it had landed on the table with no other known home.

The chairs were even piled high with bags of stuff from workshops; and books that had been returned.

The proposed home for the new proofing press was stuck under these deliveries of letterpress paper because there was no room in the paper drawers for them. And some random thread I had been using for stitching.

The studio was still home to artworks I had collected from the show at Pine Rivers, yet to be returned to their owners.

And I have no idea why so many things had accumulated on the table here. But they  had.

Some people had also dropped off a couple cabinets they thought we could use - and they just got dumped in the studio till we could work out where they would live more permanently. And we had a new air conditioner delivered as well which took up space.

I started to 'dis' some of the type; but you can see four artworks that had just been completed still trying to find a comfortable space to rest. They have since been wrapped and packed and posted.

And then we moved things and draped things ready for the air conditioner folk to do their job.

And that's the before shots. Hopefully soon I can show you some afters which look much better.

I find this time of year is good for sorting and tidying and learning and clearing and culling, so I may have been subconsciously just letting things pile up so I could sort them (or then again, maybe things were just a bit out of control as they year closed...)!!!