A Room Of My Own

Late last year a large green building appeared in our front yard. This is to be my very own studio! After years of working in a very small and cluttered space, I will now have the opportunity to move my creative life and materials into this purpose-built room.

Although the building is now complete, there is still much work to do to complete the inside. I’ve been looking at paint swatches, trying to find a warm, earthy green that is just right for inducing calmness as well as creativity. It will also take some time to find all the furnishings I need—the most important thing being a generously-sized desk, or two (though a bookshelf comes a very close second).

Perhaps the most important thing about this space is that I intend for it to remain Internet-free. Though the Net is an invaluable tool, it can also be an incredibly harmful distraction. I’ve experienced it as such over the past year, and I want to distance myself from it as much as I can from now on, while still using it for essential things, of course (blogging, research, and communication). In this I am inspired by Joseph Campbell:

This is an absolute necessity for anybody today: you must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually wonderful will happen. ~ From ‘Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth (with Bill Moyers)’

My studio will become, I hope, my creative sanctuary, where I will get much work done (both writing and art), but also much dreaming, and feeling into the dark and fertile places within. After the rather terrible time I had last year, it is time for a new start, a new focus, and this room is where that will take place.

Watch this space. Exciting things are afoot!