In the past few weeks I have moved on to painting other things. And sometimes things get knocked around.

Last week I was searching around in my “Secondary Covid Pantry.” Once the pandemic hit, (like everyone else) I did a mad dash to stock up on basic groceries and not having room for a regular, spacious food pantry, I cleaned out and stocked up this weird bottom cabinet beside my fridge and filled it up with staples like sugar and rice. Recently when I opened the door, and you guessed it- bam- rice everywhere.

Now moms everywhere know this frustration. You KNOW you did not leave the bag of rice open after last using it, so which child was it?

Yup… a mess. And picking up rice takes a while. Time I don’t really want to burn up during the day. It is a waste of good, creative time. And if there is one thing I hate wasting, it is time.

Especially when it comes to painting.

But pastels get thrown around, brushes need cleaned and floors need mopped. If you are like me, you have sketches everywhere and a few cups of old tea sitting around. Yuk! who has time to clean that all up? Well, apparently I do. I mean, it is all part of being an artist. Some days ya paint. Some days are spent cleaning up the paint.

It is part of life and just plain part of being an artist. There are days when all I do is clean up messes that, in this case, I have made, not my kids. Or there are days where I try a new technique that just doesn’t work so I find I have burned up time and energy into something that doesn’t translate into ART. Bummer. Did I mention I hate wasting time?

But in between paintings I do like to take some time to tidy up. Place things back to where I can find them easily again later and just feel good about my studio space. Ahhhh… ready to make a mess again. It’s all part of the process.

So back to painting. But first I have to take out the garbage…

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