art-ing vicariously

so i just recently finished reading the book The Time Traveller’s Wife– which by the way was a fascinating read– and found that i really missed papermaking. the female protagonist is an artist, specifically a papermaker, and there were these really long detailed descriptions of the papermaking process that were so accurate, i remembered what it was like and could picture my own hands dipping a mold into a cold vat of paper slurry.

papermaking is such a whole-body, exhausting process, but i love the tangibility of it. and there’s something rewarding about getting an end product out of something that really required all of your strength, energy, and creativity to make. the artist in me sort of reveled in those descriptions like it was starving. at one point i realized i was kind of vicariously art-making through that character and that maybe that was a sign i need to feed my poor inner artist that’s pretty much been starved.  the artist in the book has this amazing studio, and man was i jealous reading about it. my friend michaela and i have joked about how we have these ideal visions of having our own studios one day. that’s the thing that’s hard for me– finding space. someone made a joke to me today about having not seen my paintings and how they would believe it when they saw it, and it made me kind of sad. the thing is i should be making work now, current stuff. when i was living in santa barbara and had a whole separate area for my easel and all my art stuff, i spent alot of time making art. i think part of the reason why it’s been so long since i’ve painted is because i just don’t have space. and i’m really not sure what to do about it.