It wasn’t easy. It was hard to move out of the place where I created art for two years, met some amazing people, and started teaching art classes, both in person and online.

Like any move, you pack up the things you don’t need as much, and then keep the things you do, so you can keep living and working. My paints, brushes, and palette were the last things to go.

Setting Up Again

Then there was the process of setting up again in my house–in my vacant upstairs room. Well, almost vacant. We had a few things stored there. Some bins of clothing and other odds and ends. Those got moved into the basement. And that made room for the plethora of items from my studio.

I had seven large plastic strong boxes, and three or four cardboard boxes filled with art supplies, canvases, drawing paper, paints, books, and…stuff. Because the room is pretty small, it made going through it challenging. Everything needed to have a home.

I have to admit, when everything was in disarray, and things were taking longer than I had hoped to set up—I wanted to give up more than a few times.

Why did you move out of Artisan Forge? This is crazy!

But I kept telling myself, “I followed God’s will for me, and this will all work out.” I prayed for God to help me keep my head straight.

But I still had a lot of stuff–and not a lot of storage space.

What to do?

More shelving! I noticed that I had a lot of wasted vertical space in my stairwell. From the bottom of the stairs to the top of the ceiling, there was about 12′ of space. I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to get some shelves in there?

But how would I access them? A ladder? No, that would be too risky, trying to reach and brings things down. I needed a platform.

So, I went off to Menards, bought some lumber and built a platform. One side of the stairwell already had a ledge that could support weight. So I built one on the other side to match–fastened with some very long, beefy screws.

When not in use, the platform can lean against the wall, held by the rail and hooks.

And then, it can lay down flat when I need something from the shelf.

Problem solved!

Of course, my kids realized we now had a new floor in our house, so they had to get in on the action and check it out. (I tested it first!)

The next step was to put in the shelves.

And of course, fill them up with stuff.

Home (Studio) Improvement

I made a couple improvements from the last time I was working in this room. Originally, the room had no door. The doorway is only 24″ wide, so not too many doors can fit a space like that. But I need to make sure the room is assoundproof as possible, so when I record an online class, there’s not any sounds of children yelling or the blender grinding, or whatever else goes on in a house.

It doesn’t hurt to cut down on energy costs while trying to heat up the room either.

Here is the door I quickly built from plywood and backed with styrofoam insulation.

The outside…

And the inside. I have yet to paint it.

That can wait.

Lighting it Up

My budget for supplies has increased since last time as the Lord has blessed my business, so I bought some extra clamp lamps that I attached to the heavy welded lamp structure built by Dean Glenzer, an metal sculpturist from Artisan Forge Studios. And then I filled the sockets with 100 watt equivalent LED bulbs–nine of them.

It’s almost as bright as a football stadium when they’re all lit up! Which is just how I like it. You can’t paint any better than what you can see. We artists need good lighting to produce good art.

Getting it Together

After getting my lights up, my drafting table, paint cart and easel back in place, I decided to move my computer from the downstairs floor to the upstairs. That way, I can record an online course, edit the video, and upload it all from the same area. Which in theory, should save me a lot of time.

I can’t tell you how many times I recorded a video at my studio (back in Artisan Forge) and then wanted to edit it later in the evening on my computer at home–only to find out I left my memory card at the studio!

Just another trip, that’s all.

But no more.

So I moved my computer up. That wasn’t so hard. Next, I called the cable guy to come out and hook up a new jack for internet service. But it wouldn’t be that easy. He said that that it would cost a lot more than what was quoted over the phone to fish a cable through two floors from the basement.

“How about if I just bought some RG-6 cable and ran it from the downstairs to the upstairs? Would it work?”

“It would work,” he said. “But if we came out to your house for anything, we didn’t do it.”

So, that’s what I did. I could have gone out to Best Buy or Walmart to get the cable, but I felt like visiting an old friend.

Indianhead Electronics Supply in Eau Claire is a quaint little store that sells television parts and cables from a time before I was born. It’s like going into a historical museum: transistors, cathode ray tube pieces, antennas, bulbs, and all kinds of crazy things adorned the peg-board shelves.

I first met the owner, a nice older lady by the name of Judith, a few years ago when I needed to buy an old part for an antenna, so I could get free digital TV. At the time, some people were trying to steal the business away from her, and I prayed with her. She kept the business, and we stayed in touch.

I lumbered down the old stairs. Her dog greeted me racously, and we caught up.

“Do you have some RG-6 cable?” I asked.

“In the back,” she said. She got out this ancient cast iron machine that looked like a sausage grinder meets garden hose reel, and started spooling cable.

I thought I would just walk in and buy a 25′ foot cable, in a nice package. You know, like you do at Best Buy. But no.

She wound up the cable, cut it, and then gave me some metal connectors for the ends.

“I’ve never spliced coax cable before,” I said.

“Oh, it’s easy. You just cut it and crimp the ends on. Use your mystery machine and it will show you how.”

Mystery machine?

“I don’t use a cellphone or anything like that,” she added.

I shrugged. “Well, I can look up how to do it on YouTube, I guess.”

Is there anything you can’t learn how to do on YouTube? (Pretty soon, we’ll be able to say that about D-Tube and D-Live)

Would it work? I hooked one end up to the cable downstairs, and then ran it up.

I hooked it up to the modem, and then plugged in my router for wi-fi. It took a call to the cable company for them to change a setting on the modem, but everything was go!

I have direct internet in my studio now!

Finally, with everything set up, I’m feeling great. I got back to my commissions in full this week, and finished a drawing. More on that later.

Finished!

I am really looking forward to increased art production, now that everything is set up: to serve my clients with commissions, my students with art tutorials and courses, and my collectors with new fine art.

Thank you for your encouragement along this journey!

All the best,

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