After posting a photo of my old desert work space (The Green Snake Studio) earlier this week, I remembered that I promised to post some photographs of my current workspace (The Bumblehill Studio) when I first moved in five months ago. In the "Better Late Than Never" department: here, at last, is a picture of my magical hillside cabin, which backs up against beautiful woods and fields, and overlooks the rolling Devon hills.
Tilly likes the new studio because it's close to home and she can visit me more easily. She watches the neighborhood cats through the window ("kitty t.v."), and snoozes in her little bed or on the sofa as I work....
If you want to see more, I've just added several photographs of the studio (inside and out) to the Studio Pix photo album I made a while back, containing pictures of all my art studios over the years.
Like all my past studios, there are quotes and poems written on the walls (and other places) in gold ink. Here is one that is currently on the wall:
To Be of Use
by Marge Piercy
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
