My first rented art space – “a room of one’s own”

I had enough! Enough of not having a space to paint. Enough of doodles and small sketches and still being disrupted. I was going crazy without being able to put my creativity anywhere. As Virginia Woolf so famously wrote in her book A Room of One’s Own (1929), “a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. I would say more broadly “…when she is to be creative”, and couldn’t agree more.

So I put a request out in our local neighborhood app, kind of like a desperate attempt without much hope. And was so surprised to actually find a kind soul that would share part of an unused garage with me, where I could put my weary head down and do what my soul was longing to do. Paint! Oh the joys!

At first I felt a bit nervous and selfish, all that empty space just for me. It felt so luxurious. I had never spent money on a place to paint. I unpacked my box, scattering unfinished paintings and empty pages on the makeshift table and on the floor, put all the brushes in the tins, water in containers, squeezed some paint onto my palette and just started…. and before I could listen to one more of those creative gremlins and doubters, I was absorbed in the process, and loved it. The quite… OMG it’s so quite! Nobody disturbing me!

As it got darker and I couldn’t see much any more (I haven’t gotten a proper light yet) and before leaving, I just sat there and meditated. The light is very good during the day. A large window and two skylights. I felt so elated when i came back, anything is possible.

And I couldn’t quite believe it, I got a pay raise…. of the exact amount I had just spent on the garage/studio.