“Light breaks where no light shines…”
Acrylic on canvas
24 x 30
©Molly Larson Cook 2019

For an artist, a relocation upsets more than an apple cart.  It’s not just a matter of packing the paints and the canvases, sorting through old brushes and making a lot of decisions about what to keep and what to throw away.  It’s also a matter of adjusting to a new location, different light, a change in the view, even different sleeping arrangements.

If you move to another country, there’s also the matter of finding sources for the supplies you can’t do without.  And, in my case, acquiring a new painting table.  Those of us who paint on flat surfaces instead of easels often have a harder time finding the right table.  There are tables by the score, but height is the key.

I’m tall, so I need something about counter height if the counter is around 40″.

I was lucky and now have a great new table constructed very simply (but I could not have done it) by my partner in crime here.  And I’m more or less back in business.  (Thank you, Michael.)

I say “more or less” because I had to try a couple of spaces in my new home before I was happy with the light, the weather, the arrangement.

I had an unfortunate fantasy about painting on the balcony of the condo overlooking the Pacific.  I’ve not been a plein air painter in the past and am still not a plein air painter.  Anyone who has tried this trick will know exactly why I changed my mind.  Think moisture, heat, paint that dries way too fast and – I’ll admit it – the distraction of looking at the ocean when I should have been painting.

So I retreated to the originally designated spare bedroom/studio, and once the bunkbeds we inherited were dismantled, I happily claimed it as my own.  I’m happy to share, of course, but not with bunkbeds.

The relocation is essentially finished – all the details of a move.  I’ve been finding places to buy what I need, meeting other artists, learning my way around, sleeping well.  And this week I did the first real painting in my new home in Mexico.  I’ve also begun a new series combining my two creative loves – poetry and art.  The title, above, is a play on a line from Dylan Thomas.

Ideas are coming quickly and I’ll be happy to wake up tomorrow and get back to work.  It’s good to know where home is, and I now do. In every way.