Where do you work?

I have a wooden workshop. It is 20ft by 10ft and a place I love to work… Well, normally, except it is winter. It takes about an hour to warm the place up as it is one room. I haven’t installed a gas heater and am reliant on a single electric radiator.

Don’t get me wrong, once it is warm it stays warm. The place is insulated everywhere, and this year is going to get a porch on the door which will make it warmer. I may even get around to putting up curtains on the window and making it more like a homely space rather than a clinical box.

But at the moment I am aware how expensive it is to heat so, when I can, I find that I write in the dining room. The rayburn is on and my dog is curled in front of it. My family is normally around and, yes, I get a few interruptions but it is fine. I am getting a thousand plus words done a day. In the afternoon I go into the workshop and start to work on the art.

The other day though I realised that the last four months I have started to split my work. I have a large computer in the unit which has become my ‘art’ computer and the laptop has become my writing one.

Why?

I think it started because I was working away from home. I had to look after some exhibitions and needed to be out of the house. Then I met a guy and I tend to spend time with him… He’s very understanding and doesn’t get shocked if I suddenly start tapping away. So I have started to write anywhere…

But my art is all in the workshop. It has to be. I have been finding that I need to be able to leave it and go back to it. I can’t put down my paint brushes and then pack them away only to take them out again. I lose my continuation. So the art has to be able to sit there. The house isn’t big enough so it has to be the workshop. And I love making art in there.

I do have to redesign it so that it becomes more of an art studio but it is do-able and I know I am lucky to have a room that I can work with. Hopefully by the end of February it will be sorted enough that I will finally be organised.