My Art Journey | My Art Space Part Two

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The closest configuration of my art space to my imagination was back in 2018 and early 2019, just before the floors got changed. You can see it here:

Mid-march, I came home from a very meaningful trip from Japan. Wherein, a month or so later, I had to move. I packed my things away. And when all the bustle and hustle ended, I moved to the room we once called the dining room.

The family had agreed to make it into an office space because we were all looking for that sort of thing. At least, I thought I would be okay with it.

When things got moved, and I finally placed myself within new confines, I realized, I hated it.

I lost my quiet space, my safe space. There was also the fact that I was relegated to listen to everyone in the office at all times. It was suffocating, to say the least.

I tried really hard to make it my own, but I just hated not having a space of my own. It wasn’t the sharing that got to me. It was that I had given up equal to that of what others had gained. I wondered if I gained anything, and when the answer had been a solid “no”, I wondered why I had given up the precious parts of my safe space.

Suddenly, moving just wasn’t worth it anymore.

My art space is a sacred space that I didn’t understand was sacred.

You may be wondering, what is so sacred about a workspace?

Honestly, it’s decided by preference, and may not be easily understood. There was something inspiring about the space that I had in 2018/2019 that the new space just didn’t have. I had a magnolia tree that I saw bloom on a yearly basis. When it died from an infection, it was replaced by the tree it blocked before. Light shone through early in the morning, which for a night person wouldn’t have been beautiful yet it was. Half of the room was filled with my own drawings, each reminding me of my love for myself. Finally, half the room was mine.

When I moved, I lost the nature. No pleasing sunlight nor an inspiring tree. Instead, I was forced to look at the porch of a neighbor. We live in a townhouse, so it was unavoidable. I suddenly couldn’t play my music and had to purchase a headset. My head does not like that for long work hours. I surrendered half the space I occupied and was left with a tiny quarter space.

It was suffocating.

And if it wasn’t obvious already, I was essentially repeating the beginning of my art journey.

This space was not my own. I felt no ownership of the space whatsoever. Rather, I felt even more displaced by it than at home.

So, I’m trying to recreate the space of my imagination.

It starts by moving back to my room.

It’s messy and definitely nowhere near what it was before, but it’s a start. It’ll be a long journey before it gets to being how it was before.

I’m not out to recreate the past, but to recapture the things that give me joy.