Phase III Moving...

 

My home office before dismantling Saturday morning...Okay, I really am sentimental. Here's the video tour of all my favorite art treasures, some I made, many are from trades with other artists, photos and momentos..and yes a little bit of a mess:

Do you like the black door? I'm going to spray paint the fixtures metallic silver.
My new privacy shades! (too many days and nights on display, I had a dream the other night I was invisible)

My new office set-up - that's my hard drive in my hands, I can take it home with me...modern technology..gotta love it. I'm very lucky to be married to my own personal IT man.

 

Rich putting my work table back together, we had quite a time getting this thing out of my basement studio. (I purchased this in the ikea scratch and dent room many years ago..love this table)

 

 Hors douvres dinner...perfect late night ending to a long day of work.

This is Tuesday...one of my current pet portrait clients, she came for a meet & greet on Sunday. As you can see she's adorable.

Almost everything is here now so I'm setting up shop...hope to be open this weekend!

Phase II...the exterior

Fabulous painter and drummer Flint, of Chiovari Painting, worked wonders on the facade yesterday (Rich & Flint have been collaborating musically for almost 17 years). Stay tuned to see if I paint the door blue or black - we were considering white, but too hard to keep clean. 

The window trim was originally going to be black but seeing it withwhite primer we decided to go with white, opens the space up.

 

When I get around to painting the sign it will be attached to the brick above the blue section. Okay, this is my last blog post from Washtenaw...unhooking and moving my mac and all my other office and studio stuff today...hope you have a great weekend!

Transformations

I'm a huge fan of the before & after photo...

 

Rich trips the light fantastic...
 

ahh..clean blue & shiny white..do you see 4 funny little faces?
 

I even get excited about new register covers!

Bought my sign board today...MDO. We start moving my studio on Saturday!

Stray Cat Strut

Coming up May 30th, Tree House Humane Society’s Stray Cat Strut which helps educate the public about the plight of stray cats. Theevent also raises money for the rehabilitation, care and adoption ofthe cats housed at Tree House. Follow the links to register. I donated the logo design for this annual event which is celebrating it's 4th year.

Elongated Load...

In the midst of all the craziness preparing my new studio space, I still have Monday class class. I have not been super productive the last few weeks so was glad to make this truck the other night...this is the longest one so far..still need to add some wheels and might do lattice or ribs of clay across the cargo area or leave it open...a straw holder..what would you put in it?
 

More Progress from Last Week

It's official and legal...I can now open up shop in the City of Chicago.

Montego Bay Blue...I'm going to try to live with it for awhile, definitely not the color I had envisioned.

Rich surprised me and brought Izzy & Alice to see the shop...

Just as I suspected: Izzy went right for the windows wagging her tailat every passerby and and Alice could hardly contain herself and had tobe be tethered by her leash...

I spent an entire day caulking and painting the metal brackets around the windows, this has made a big difference, I'll show the before & after close ups when I remove the tape.

The floors were sanded and varnished on Friday. I'm hoping to move my studio in this coming weekend. Our friend Flint, and the drummer in Rich's band, has come to my rescue and will be painting the outside of the building for me sometime over the next week or so...this is a huge relief, he will make it look ten time better than I ever could, not to mention I would be flinging paint allover the concrete. Oh..and I still have to make that sign, it's 29" high by 14 feet long...I think some people thought my photo-shopped photograph of the shop was the real deal.

Progress...

Sorry I haven't posted any photos - I'm working so hard, exhausted and early to bed every night (and I'm a late night person!) Trying to get all the painting done before they come to refinish the floors on Friday. Hoping it's warmer next week so I can get started painting outside - haven't even started the sign yet but have gotten some good advice on what to paint it on / how to hang it etc. Last week I had Mark the handyman helping me...he patched holes, weather stripped the backroom, removed a half wall, added more tracks and other electrical work and most importantly put white beadboard paneling on the ceiling of the front window bays. This was a huge improvement...Below are some random photos from last week, I'll share this week's photos in my next post:

covering walls of many different colors...

weatherproofing a very drafty & creepy storage closet

 

the build out that Mark removed for me:

 

it was just placed to close to the back, this will be my easel/painting area

 

Mark installing the paneling, look at the top left of this photo, that's what the entire window bay ceiling looked like. I was a little panicked over how I was going to cover this up, then as luck would have it I saw the beadboard paneling used on an HGTV home improvement show - perfect!

P.S. I've done all the painting myself and all white which blinds me, cannot wait to get some color going...keeping it clean though, color only on the back and front walls.

The First Official Canine Visitor...Maisie

Yesterday I had my first canine visitor in the space, this is Maisie...she was recently adopted by a Francie, a wonderful customer of mine and devoted animal advocate. Francie is the reason we have Alice, she was working with Chicago Canine Rescue and had sent an email about all these puppies needing foster homes...the rest is history. For the past couple of years Francie has been working with A New Leash on Life, this is the group that took Maisie in...she's a very sweet little pup and actually full grown at 1.5 years...very petite for a pit mix. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better as well as many other dogs in the neighborhood!