Chapter 35 - Four walls, 16 Tubes of Paint and a roll of canvas...

We have converted our house into an enormous studio. I found some two by fours of various length and cut them and pounded them into the wall studs in big rectangular shapes. Then we took the roll of raw canvas we had ordered from Dick Blick and stapled it to these temporary stretchers. We have two enormous oil paintings done so far. Now, when they dry, we can simply pull them off the stetchers, roll them up and send them for a fraction of the price it would cost to send stretched canvases. We feel this will go over big since everybody wants big but who wants to pay three or four hundred dollars to have a giant painting sent. This way, for about a hundred bucks they can take them to a local framers and have them re-stretched.

Yesterday was productive. I not only built myself a very comfortable chair out of an abandoned bucket car seat (wiring it to a milk crate base) I got one big oil done and a necklace. We cooked a gumbo. Listened to the yelling from the bar next door and off key karaoke madness. Strange how this doesn't bother us. I guess after you've been living in a van for so long noises like that become oddly comforting...

The only downside to all this is the chair. Even though I cleaned it up good there still seem to be a few tiny ants in there and they periodically will climb up my arm, even into my hair. Annoying for me but now J won't sit in it.