Tales from the Boathouse 1

In late December 2012 during a storm and a huge tidal surge,the sea came in to my garden and in to the Studio. The floor was destroyed, art works were damaged and mess and mud went everywhere.

Soon after, In January 2013, I sustained a serious injury to my back which rendered me housebound for 6 months and unable to attempt very much for the rest of the year. A drawing project begun at Mill of Benholm in October has had to be postponed until there is an improvement in my ability to stand for long and also until I have finished repairing and re-organising the Studio. I have, however,decided to participate in North East Open Studios this year so those of you who have enjoyed visiting my Studio in the past will be able to return and I look forward to meeting newcomers. You can. of course arrange to visit at other times by contacting me beforehand.

For the past 2 weeks, I have been busy cleaning up, de-rusting and painting my 2 antique printing presses. A bath in sea water did them no good at all! Yesterday, I began to bring pictures back from Taylors Auctions where they had been in storage while the studio was being fixed.They will all be carefully checked before going back into circulation. I will also be looking at the stock of prints and drawings in plan chest drawers and replenishing the art works in the browsers.

As you may guess,working as an Artist is not always as free and romantic as you may think.There are a lot of quite hard graft and boring tasks to be done as well to enable the other work to proceed. I am really looking forward to creating some new art; however, the next item on the agenda will be to complete the printing of some editions where I had only printed part of the edition and now I am running out of copies.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at my brand new website. Check back for news and updates and contact me if you have any queries.

Sheila MacFarlane April 2014