Clutter, I realized I need it

 My studio is off limits to visitors – usually.  Recently one of my very pushy artist friends came in and brought a few other artists with her.  I was horrified.  However after they left I had an aha moment.

I need that clutter and this woman may be the reason why ---

Grandma Foster, my mother’s mother, was a widow who lived in the back of her knit shop.  Well, it was more like a general store.  Needlework was her primary business but in addition she sold school supplies, Hallmark cards, gift wrap and Berkshire nylon stockings.  There was also a lending library in one corner of the shop.

There was a sign above the counter in the front of the store.  I remember two lines, the first -- “Maybe Helen has it.” And the last -- “you wonder how she found it.”  In the back of the shop there were three rooms and a bathroom.  One room was her living room, bedroom and office.  Her couch was her bed and when I visited I slept on a cot.  When my bed was set up there was just a path to get through to the kitchen. Off the kitchen was a small bathroom and a storage room.  Extra merchandise was stored there but the overflow was everywhere else in her living quarters.  Clutter – everywhere.

I stayed with her often.  Looking back on it now I realize why – I was comfortable there -- and loved.  She accepted that I was a tomboy, smarter than some thought and an artist. She encouraged my art while others tried to steer me away from it.

Guess I’ll stop trying for a neat as a pin in my studio – it’s just not going to happen and I probably wouldn’t be able to work in there anyway.  As long as the rest of the house is neat I can still shut the door. And maybe I should get a lock.   

I did that sketch of her several years ago.  Since I've recently been doing family drawings in my grunge sketchbooks I think it's time to do Grandma.