Back in Business
It's almost a month since my husband showered me with gadgets and materials for both the lino cutting and now etching. While awesome the fallout was absolutely no space to turn, let alone work without worrying about compromising something else.
About a week ago I packaged and mailed a lot of pieces to my sister's B&B. I had held them back because before Covid I was using them in workshops and trunk shows. No need to keep them when photos on zoom meetings are the norm. And now I have a reason to make more.
The weather was not conducive to a lot of outdoor work so instead, this week I dismantled my workshop, took everything apart and tried to sort things into categories. I threw out a lot of paper and scraps of scraps, materials, water stained or mouse damaged or insect infested Then I started to put my studio back into working order.
We bought a few things. I was wasting a lot of vertical space so we brought in two industrial shelving units and a stainless table for the very heavy presses. (etching and heat press).
I found a place for everything (though I'm sure I'll drive myself nuts looking for something that was only moved a few inches, let alone the other side of the room).
I put a lot of elbow grease into cleaning the paint, dyes and even glue from the work table. I worried about transferring ink and paint to cloth works.
The etching press still needs to be anchored to its table but for now it's safe and out of the way yet easily accessible.
I ended up with four bags of garbage and two bags of donation goods.
Though I'm not 100% happy about having both machines back on the same table. Space dictates this for now. Having to switch machines was a real nuisance.
I also got rid of a small desk that was really only an magnet for junk.
A dedicated 'printing' locale should help with the mess of ink and paint. It just needs some dedicated lighting, (currently in a box in the garage).
Not much of a visual difference here but what is still here makes more sense.
Two shelving units gets everything off the floor (flooded twice, ugh!) and again everything is readily available, no moving of piles to access the bottom box.
And yes, in the background, a quilt on the frame.
Nice to be back!