Back in November, not being able to convince my husband of the wisdom of adding a new wall between our kitchen and dining area, I up-cycled a bifold closet door by painting a mural on one side and some herbs on the other to make a screen.
Fortunately for everyone else’s sanity, I was elbow deep in a teaching certificate program and didn’t have time to act on the logical next step-painting actual doors around the house (and step risers and furniture and…), but a seed had been planted.
For some reason, teaching full-time has reignited a need to paint, and that little seed has been sprouting, despite the best efforts of my common sense to smother it. The painting spark is setting back fires that get my easel out every night and leave in-progress paintings hung in the bald spots on the walls around the living room.
It’s summer — art fair and farmers market season — so the paintings are never there for very long. The only one that doesn’t rotate out of the lineup is the screen.
A few family members innocently have suggested painting screens to take to the art fairs, turning a middle-aged artist’s thoughts to all the impromptu canvases in the world still waiting to be painted. But I think I’ll just start with a single screen (with a promise already made to the husband not to sell the one that started at all).