It dawned on me the other day that I have not updated the status of my home studio in quite a while. As it stands now, most of the artwork has been boxed up, and I’ve moved a lot of stuff around so that I might actually be able to work in there someday. I have a lighting kit and I had planned, at one point, to maybe do some home setup type of shots. I want to start shooting little things around the house, you know things like apples, games and puzzles, cool looking electronic devices, and other odd bits of ephemera that I’ve managed to collect over the years. Yes, I know, you’re not supposed to save ephemera but, heck, sometimes I just can’t help myself. The other day, while cleaning out the studio, I happened upon a ticket stub for Eric Clapton at Royal Albert Hall. You don’t really expect me to throw that away now, do you?
So, all of this talk of ephemera and studio cleaning has me thinking. I’m going to get a nice box (or two) and stash away all of my ephemera, to sort of collect it in one spot. I’m doing this so that I can maybe shoot it someday or perhaps just to tidy up things a bit around here. I’ve talked before about how I’m on a new almost minimalist Japanese style organizational kick. Basically, I want to rid myself of everything that doesn’t have true meaning, that doesn’t give me some kind of joy, that isn’t special to me anymore. To put it bluntly, I just want less crap around the house. Even given this strong desire for less crap, I still want to maintain a few items. You know the type of things I’m talking about here. Things with which I just cannot bear to part. It’s the usual struggle made worse by the notion that, hey, I might photograph that someday. Ugh!
The newfangled studio space has me wanting to setup a pochade box and start dabbling in cold wax painting. The one big issue with this is that I don’t know if a pochade box type setup is really best for cold wax work. My understanding is that, much like encaustics, you want to work on a flat table. Frankly, I’m not in the mood to try to fit a big flat table back into the studio, not after all the work I’ve done recently to clear things out in there. Perhaps time will tell if my pochade box or my hankering for cold wax work will win this battle. Wish me luck, right?
I’ve also made plans to work on a book featuring some of my travel images but, at this point I must confess it’s not going too well. I started out strong, got myself setup, and started working on it, but the monumental task of gathering all of the images has proven too much for me. Lately anyway, I’ve been obsessed with all things FitBit, trying to get into shape, cleaning out the studio, and the like. As things wind down with this maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get back into the book making project.
So, this is where things stand. Everything started, nothing completed. I’ve got some great ideas, I just can’t seem to execute. These are some of the reasons I keep tossing around the idea of hiring an art coach but I don’t want to go there. I’m not quite ready to go there. I’ve even thought about a life coach but, same deal, not quite what I need or had in mind. What’s a girl to do? Yes, I know the struggle is real, right? And, yes, I know, I’m sitting here complaining about what the kids now call first world problems. Cry me a river that drowns me in a sea of tears, right?
I am honestly curious as to what somebody might do with a box of ephemera if they were not a photographer. Drop me a line if your so inclined to share you thoughts about that one, will you?
Until next time…
PS This one from Texas. Shopping on the town square in Georgetown, Texas, voted one of the prettiest town squares in the country. Taken with the Canon 5DS and the walkabout lens.
