Since the move, I've gotten back into a routine of divided days: mornings for writing and afternoons for keeping "house" a chore that happily results in plenty of time in the kitchen with my new post-wedding pots and pans. Of great help in this area has been cable television, or, more specifically, the Food Network, a station featuring smiling cheese-balls who for twenty four hours a day offer free advice on how to simmer lamb in olive oil and wine, how to pick a chicken, how to quick-chop parsley into savory, tiny bits.
"Maybe you should do that slowly," Aaron said while watching me attempt the chef quick-chop with our shiny new cutlery.
My affection for Paula Dean aside, my favorite Food Network show thus far is Ace of Cakes. Chef Duff, owner of the company and artist several times over (aside from creating the world's most incredible confectionery marvels, he is also a sculptor and musician), opened his cake studio by hiring all of his cake making friends. Essentially, Charm City Cakes is a building full of artists who get to wear whatever they want to work, laugh it up, and make dough (money) sculpting marzipan. I first saw this show at my Grandma's house last year while taking a break from painting. It was the only cooking show that made me think about something other than cooking: It made me think about how much I missed being in a studio with other artists who knew how to play as hard as they worked and who sometimes forgot the distinction between the two.
I received my B.F.A. from Miami University of Oxford, a very pretty school but no World News and Report gold medalist for art making. I was just lucky enough to attend the school at the right time. For two years I shared a studio with a dozen of the most hilarious, eager, and talented fellow painters. Together we enjoyed the undivided attention of hard-working, ambitious professors. The studio we shared was divided into partitioned spaces that allowed each upperclassman a semi-private area to work. The first year, after each area had been asssigned, a few of us requested shared sovereignty over the one space that remained empty. We wallpapered it in 70's green paper, furnished it with a television, a Play station, and a couch, and quite literally lived in studio for the remainder of the semester. We painted, but I don't remember when or how. In memory it seems the paintings just appeared of their own accord, slapped haphazardly onto canvas rather quickly between trips to Goodwill or late night showings of Spinal Tap. The paintings I did those two years remain my best.
This is nostalgia talking. I know those painting required work. I just don't remember it. Painting conditions have been less than good since school and I'm inclined to romanticize things in the past, especially when the present disappoints. Watching the artists on Ace of Cakes having too much fun brainstorming together only underscored the banality of my circumstance. Painting in Grandma's suburban basement certainly wasn't what I had in mind for my future as an artist. I listened to bad radio and forced my way through one panel at a time, taking periodic breaks to eat lunch in the picnic room or drag my feet through Elder-Beerman while Grandma dressed me in half price women's wear. Eventually, the emotional stress of working in her house took its toll: the wood-shop reminded me everywhere of Grandpa, which in turn reminded me of my Grandmother's isolation and never -spoken-of but ever-present grief; despite her cheerfulness, the loneliness of that house was oppressive. I couldn't put a dent in it, no matter how many hours I stayed or how many cups of coffee and pints of ice cream Grandma and I shared. Summer came. I wasn't satisfied with my paintings. Around my grandmother's fervent good spirits I felt guilty for my negativity. The year was starting to look like a bust.
Then, shortly after my wedding and just a week before I planned to move out of Grandpa's wood-shop, Grandma went to the ER with chest pain. She slipped into confusion then sleep and was gone. I haven't cared about the failure or success of those paintings since; I just thank God every day I had a year with Grandma before she left.
*
Shortly after the funeral, Aaron and I packed our cars and headed south. Aside from a thirty minute wind through the highways of Charleston, the drive to Virginia was all country: country on the radio, country out the window. We live within sight of Monticello, wedged between moutains and beach, intellectually afloat on the academic life of the University of Virginia. I've considered applying for a teaching position at UVA, but this town is new territory, geographically and emotionally, and I feel myself retreating from the public performance of teaching, content to sit and my desk and make things, to be an artist and to play house and to not do much else. I might even split infinitives (for those grammar mongers out there).
Thankfully, Charlottesville has made this sabbatical possible: Thursday I received an acceptance letter from the local artists collaborative. The McGuffy Art Center has two studios waiting, both ready as early as next week. For at least the next year I'm back in a building of artists, the one place I don't have to try to belong.
I'm doing my best to contain my excitement. The studio is available starting next week. Until then I'll wear the wrinkles out of my apron and channel my creative energy into Paula Dean's deviled eggs.
