Life at an Art Colony

Ok, you may not be wondering what life is like at an art colony, but I ain't got nothin' else to write about. Here is my day. I wake at dawn. Yes, dawn, 4:45 AM. I gaze from my sleeping loft (see photo) down at my oversized studio and try to think about what work I'm facing for the day. I throw on some clothes and drag myself over to the kitchen in the main house just across the lawn from my studio to make a pot of coffee.

It's a big old kitchen, not the one used by the chefs to make our dinners (that's in the Barn House). 50's white metal cabinets on one side where the "Kalamazoo" range of the same vintage sits mostly unused accept for the occasional omelet, along with a side by side 70's or early 80's off-white refrigerator with broken water dispenser. The fridge is well stalked with sandwich meats and blocks of cheese, a bin full of lemons with a few apples tossed in for color. There is more fruit on a counter, several loaves of bread (inlcuding moldy bagels which had to be tossed), and a peculiar trove of avocados. Built-in cabinets on the other side of the kitchen are filled with cereals, nuts, dried fruits, and canned goods (mostly soups).

I love being the only one up in the morning. I sit and read the paper with a mug of coffee, write some emails, and have a bowl of cereal in lovely solitude. Then, closing in on seven, I head back to my studio to begin work.

I paint until 11:30 (with the occasional necessity of a ten minute nap around 10). Then over to the Barnhouse kitchen for lunch. The Barnhouse is where the serious eating and cooking takes place, and where the previous night's leftovers fill several shelves of the extra large refrigerator. So, I try to resist all the rich stuff and eat a salad or some such (usually I find that I am not successful at this), check my email (the wifi only extends intermittently into my studio), chat lightly with some of the inmates, and back to my cell to take my post-lunch 30 minute nap.


My walk in the many trails around the prairie out my studio door (which is a state nature preserve) takes about 50 minutes (2 1/2 miles) and back to my studio around two-ish. Work until 5:00 and then cocktail hour at the asylum. More coming....