• About

The Perks of Being an Artist

~ Because demented people need love, too.

The Perks of Being an Artist

Tag Archives: moving

I’m Still Here, Sort Of

11 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by emilypageart in death, dementia, mental health, sip and paint studio, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bourbon, dementia, depression, evil landlord, Fractured Memories, grief, making up words, mental health, moving, moving on, sip and paint studio

It’s been a long time since I last posted. This is partly due to laziness, partly due to being totally overwhelmed by life, partly because it’s the time of year when my depression usually kicks things up a notch, and partly due to the hurricane coverage that has sucked me in. A LOT has happened over the last almost-month that I’ve been an absentee blogger. And as I got farther and farther behind on posting, the harder it’s been to make myself sit down and actually write. So, because I’m out of practice, this post may be total shit. Apologies in advance for shitblogging.

As you may or may not recall, our landlord for our sip and paint studio decided to be a total douchefuck and double our rent. If you missed that post, go back and read it to catch up before you come back and finish this post. I’ll wait (I won’t really wait. I’m not typing this live, as you read it. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you people.).

So, now that you’re caught up, you’ve probably figured out that we did, in fact, close the brick and mortar location. I taught my last in-studio class on the 19th, and then we had 2 weeks to clean the space out, during which I also had to travel to Colorado to train artists for a new sip and paint studio for which we were doing some consulting. ‘Cause there was so much time for THAT. Aaaaaaaagggghhhh! Cleaning the studio out to close down the business completely wouldn’t have been that big a deal, because we could toss, donate, or sell most of the stuff filling the 1400 square foot space. But because we’re still doing mobile events and offering consulting services, we had to keep a lot of it, which means that we had to find storage for it all. Double-aaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhh!

We had to go from this (which doesn’t even show the back rooms which were also choking on art supplies):

full AA class

To this:

empty AA studio.JPG

The room where-art-goes-to-die was already packed to the gills, and we need the space we have in the buildings at the haunt to make more fun things like the creepy trees. So we had to spend a few days emptying everything out of the already packed spaces so that we could put shelving from the studio into them and re-pack them even more. I had to throw out some old art, which isn’t a happy thing to do, but, realizing that they hadn’t sold since college and aren’t really representative of the work I now do, I said “fuck it” and tossed the paintings out. I also renamed the room from “the room where-art-goes-to-die” to “clusterfucklandia.” (I think maybe I’m German or Dutch. I keep combining words to make a newer, longer words. I must have germandutchitis.) A local friend also generously allowed us to store a solid crapton of stuff in the space above his garage, which saved us a whole heap o’ trouble. So we worked it out.

the room where art goes to die

Except for the desk. My dad’s desk. We’d brought it down to serve as our check-in desk at the studio after we put my dad into the dementia care facility. Try as we might, we couldn’t figure out a place to keep it now that the studio is closing, and it was insanely heavy and damn near impossible to get into the back of the pick-up truck for easy moving. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but for some reason, I got really, really sad at the thought of giving it up. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think that maybe, on a subconscious level, it was a way of having my dad still be a part of a chapter of my life that he’d never see in person. He was contributing to the studio, in a way. And now here I am closing that chapter, and it feels weird that there’s an entire chunk of my life that he never knew, and as I move forward into the next chapter, I won’t even have his desk along for the ride to make him a part of it. It’s silly. I know. It’s just a desk, not my dad. But I just can’t help feeling really sad that I had to let it go.

And then, suddenly, everything was sold or donated or in storage, and I had nothing to do. Except think about that damn desk. And my dad. And now I’m grieving hard again. And, of course, things keep popping up to ensure that I continue to think about it: References on TV; lucky pennies; someone he knew, while growing up, contacting me out of the blue because they read my book; going to a friend’s wedding at which her father said to me, “You know, your dad’s band was supposed to be playing for this,” and at which she and her father danced the father-daughter dance to “What a Wonderful World,” which is what my dad and I danced to at my wedding; cleaning out old emails and discovering a bunch from my dad from his early days with dementia; and on and on. You get the idea. And now I’m reeling a bit and have kind of shut down and hidden from the world for the last little while.

But, as we all know and sometimes like to pretend we don’t, life goes on. And we have plans. All the plans. The best plans. But those plans are for another post. For now, we have bourbon. All the bourbon. The best bourbon. And right about now I’d really like to get all the drunk. But I won’t. I need to save some of the drunk for you, dear reader, because I’m generous like that.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Mr. Big Help

08 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by emilypageart in humor

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

helpful husband, moving, storage wars

My husband agreed to be ever-so-helpful and empty out the storage unit and take everything to the new house so that we can stop paying for storage. His knee was starting to give out, so he couldn’t bring everything up the stairs to the where it’ll be stored (though, to be fair, he did bring a lot of it up for me), so I told him just to leave it in the living room and I’d take it up today. Keep in mind, that he has an entire living room to put it all in, and he opts for directly in front of the door. Helpful, honey, really helpful:

20150705_112611

On an unrelated note, I may be a hoarder.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...
Follow The Perks of Being an Artist on WordPress.com

Emily Page

Emily Page

Check Out the Art

You can view my artwork on Facebook or on my website at http://www.emilypageart.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Archives

Buy Fractured Memories!

Buy the book!

Goodreads – Fractured Memories

Follow The Perks of Being an Artist on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,251 other subscribers

Buy Fractured Memories!

Buy Fractured Memories!

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Perks of Being an Artist
    • Join 501 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Perks of Being an Artist
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: