Today was the day. The studio and the pop up ​Colors of ​Jazz gallery in the window on the street level of the building are history.​ I had a melancholy moment turning in the keys.  But this is not the first time I’ve closed one door and opened another.  ​

My painting life is temporarily on hold, though not history. ​ And my life as an artist continues.​

The responses to the collages I ​included in my last post reminded me that there are many ways to keep the juices flowing, and ​working again on collages will be better in my temporary space. 

As a writer I’ve successfully shifted more than once from one genre to another – fiction, essays, poetry, playwriting, nonfiction – including this and other web posts. I also continue to coach writers and have been published in poetry competitions (and sometimes won!). 

We visual artists shift genres, too. We make allowances for life and circumstance. Painter Chuck Close is a fine example.  

Close was an American artist who created large abstract photorealist portraits of himself and others. His work is internationally known. When he became paralyzed in 1988, Close changed his method of painting and continued until he died in 2021.  Close once said that “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

The creative gene is in us all. Children and adults. Rich and poor. Every race and color. Male and female and all along the spectrum. 

​Max DuPree, business leader and author, was chairman and CEO of Herman Miller, Inc. a company named as one of Fortune magazine’s “best managed” and “most innovative” companies.  In his small book, The Art of Leadership, DuPree gives a lesson on leadership as an art and not a science.

By now you’re wondering what this has to do with collages and art.  Patience, grasshopper.

​In the 1920’s​, DuPree’s father ran the company, during a time when ​ factories were ​run by a central pulley system and boilers fueled by a continuous supply of sawdust. The millwright was the man in charge of keeping the whole system running.​ ​

During ​this time, the millwright died and Max’s father​, who was a young man at the time,​ went to visit ​the family to express his condolences. ​The millwright’s wife asked if she could read some poetry. Max’s father said yes and commented on the beauty of the poetry. When he inquired about the poet, he was told that the millwright had written it. All these years later the question remains: was he a millwright who wrote poetry or was he a poet who did millwright’s work?

Creativity is everywhere.  I have always loved the millwright story, and I strongly believe that poetry and art exist in places and people where we least expect them.  

For now, for me, whatever I do will happen in my new “studio”  right here in my townhouse where my dear partner, Michael, and I have moved my supplies and installed my art table. 

Although the chilly autumn rains have started, I’m still ready to open a new window!