After 3 months of living in my car, my business partner's basement and my gallery, I moved into a sweet rental house just down the road from my kids' school. The rent is unbelievable and perfect for the starving artist that I currently am. I have been here for nearly 2 months, finally have a landline and, hold on to your hats, dial-up internet service. I live in a "holler" which means I am rural enough that the phone company doesn't offer dsl here. Satellite internet is too costly, so the obvious alternative is to go back in time to the 1990's.
I moved my electric wheel, slab roller and electric kiln to my gallery where there is a small space for a studio. The Bailey now resides at the Mushroom Factory, a former shitake mushroom factory turned artist studios. I still need to put a roof over the kiln and hook up the gas, not to mention make enough work to fill her up. However, the coup de grace is my kick wheel on my front porch.
In other news, Kyle Carpenter included me in Mudfire's Asheville in Atlanta exhibit, opening later this month. I am so excited about this exhibit, especially since I haven't done much clay work since last fall.
Still trying to honor his requests for privacy, I won't talk too much about my estranged husband. He and I are on civil speaking terms. The kids live with me during the school week and stay with him on the weekends. They seem to be adjusting pretty well. Kids are more adaptable than we think. By the time I was my daughter's age, I had been through hell and back, so in all honesty, they have it pretty easy.
The gallery keeps me very busy. And, no, we do not have our website up and running yet. Being the detail-oriented Capricorn that I am, I am by default, the bookkeeper. I like getting the numbers to balance, but it's challenging and very time consuming. And now, I am being trained to use Quickbooks, which is not going so quickly at all. Business was booming this summer, has slowed this month, but we expect it to pick up as soon as the leaves start turning. We get a lot of tourist traffic. This month we are catching our breath and catching up.
I'm relearning the simple life and am quite content and happy. I live a little close to the edge sometimes, but I have never felt this free and relaxed.
