This is the space for our members to discuss and share their creative projects, ranging from written works to drawings, photography, and even craft projects such as knitting and woodworking. Self promotion is welcome (websites where we can view and/or purchase your work). Please do continue to preface if content is NSFW and be sure to properly spoiler/link such content.

One lingering issue I’ve faced over the past few years has been the growing (or shrinking?) question of storage space. If I’d stuck solely to inkwork or even, in painting terms, watercolor and gouache, it wouldn’t have been such a problem, but even after throwing out all (all right, most) of the paintings I just didn’t consider up to snuff, I’m still faced with what sometimes looks like a nascent hoarder’s lair despite my best efforts (the painting’s not the only factor, but it’s a major one). It’s doubly frustrating as, on a personal level, I’ve been largely happy with my living space over the past near-decade. I’m still unsure of the exact total, but it’s probably around 170 sq. ft., which probably won’t strike someone living in, say, Manhattan, as especially extreme, but which routinely astonishes local folks—even fellow renters, impoverished or no—who learn of it (and has, I suspect, been the primary reason for my continued affordable rent in a now regionally-famous unaffordable area). If I continued to lead a semi-monastic lifestyle and didn’t (still) have friends I’d love to have over (not least in partial repayment of the hospitality I’ve been generously offered over the years), I’d probably be happy to live here in perpetuity (hypothetically assuming as well a bohemian rejuvenation of an active but increasingly boring downtown, a thorough strengthening of the century-and-change-old house, actual ownership, the ability to have a couple of tomato planters nearby, and… okay, maybe twenty or thirty extra feet largely for kitchen counter and bathroom—sink and tub—space). But such is life.

So, during the killer haze-enforced grounding I and so many other Midwesterners “enjoyed” a couple of weeks ago, I tried to make the best of my time indoors and, maybe thanks to the unexpectedly mandatory acquaintance with my living quarters, finally decided to go through with a partial resolution I’d had knocking around in my head for some time. I rented a small storage unit on the outskirts of town, which’ll likely host the standup luggage I’m likely to use two or three times in the next ten years, a few other incidentals, and quite a few paintings and most of my spare painting surfaces—canvases, panels, cardboard sheets, etc. It would have seemed like an extravagance just a few years ago, but thinking it through, I’d be paying a relative pittance in rent for a probably much-improved living situation (my membership at the Y has a similar appeal for how much better the showers are). I won’t go into detail (a hollow boast after the rest of this post, to be sure), but this’ll likely lead to other long-needed infrastructural improvements in my life that I’m now anticipating a lot more keenly. Swung by the location over a couple of days last week and dropped off most of my items; I expect all of it to be done by the end of the week and the place already has a different and better energy. Hoping I can find the time the next few days to get in a little applied creativity in the meantime. Spending today riding my bike from Ann Arbor to Detroit, so won’t be around to post or read until the afternoon (assuming no… mishaps).

How’s your work going?