Judgement Day comes in many ways. It came for me yesterday in the studio when I realized I was way past the day for cleaning things up.

One would think, one would, that with all the spare time during the pandemic, I might have made more effort to tidy up the studio. And I did make some effort, but “tidying up” is not painting and what I missed was the painting. The painting. The showing. The open house. The conversations with potential buyers. The possibility that I might make a sale.

Over the weekend, I made a start. I loaded up and brought home tools (24″ paint shield/scraper, brushes, palette knives) and palettes (white china plates) to give them all a good scrub.

But on Monday when I was working on a new piece on my large enough painting table, I kept knocking things over… tubes of paint, an empty – thank you, gods – cup, bottles of ink. It was distracting, and I thought to myself, “This is not a good thing.”

But when I turned to various helpful sites about cleaning one’s work/creative space, the information fell flat for me. I once had a writing business that was dubbed “Order Out of Chaos.” For a writing business, that fit like a hand in a glove. Bringing order out of written chaos was what I did.

For an art/painting/creative business it just doesn’t work. The more chaos, the better.

Yes, an artist needs to keep her tools and supplies in some kind of order but not the order that provides “a quiet, peaceful” place to work. Hell and damn! I may need a quiet, peaceful place to write – and I do – but when I work on my art, a quiet, peaceful place is the last place I want to be.

The only well-known artist I can think of who might have enjoyed “a quiet, peaceful” place to work is Grandma Moses. I may not be a kid anymore, but I’m not Grandma Moses quite yet.

So bring on the chaos, bring on the noise. Bring on the three-ring circus that sparks the creative juice.

Message to myself: Tidy up the paints and brushes, but leave the creative chaos alone. Your best work is lurking somewhere in that chaos!