Fortress of Solitude

After a months of pondering, wondering, seeking, searching, hunting, packing, planning, painting and unpacking...my Fortress of Solitude is complete and the house around it is not far behind. 


As much as we hated to leave the country, we packed up and headed back to Newnan, my hometown to buy a house. We are now closer to the school where I work, closer to UGA where Julie is working on her PhD and dangerously close to my folks. We will miss not having neighbors, the wonderful people, our chickens and garden, the beautiful landscape and the stars at night. I will not miss armadillos, coyotes, deer in the road, a 45 minute one way commute, a dirty car, chopping wood for 3 fireplaces and mowing several acres with a push mower.


All I need is to have Directv installed in the studio and I am all set! I am sure Julie will be so pleased not to see my art stuff in front of every TV in the house.

Above are images of the new space, once an quasi sunken carport. I am using an old dresser as a tabouret, perfect height and 19"x25" of mixing space, very necessary when you use a palette knife on large canvases. I have also cut pieces of wood that are screwed into studs on the wall at different heights from which to hang canvases of different sizes. I have a TV with Directv and Netflix streaming to keep my from the front of the rest of the TV's is the decent parts of the house.

I also have all of my art books out, my guitars have been rescued from under beds and my still life items are out where I can see them. A couple of great chairs and a sofa and a mirror behind me where i will be painting. I do need to make space for my newly constructed shadow box, I made it 24"x24" and it may just be too big. My old space at our farmhouse was great, however it was too small. I do miss the fireplace!

All I need now is motivation! they say painting is like riding a bike... I say it's like riding a horse and then falling off and breaking something. It takes a little effort to get back on...