Space-time
noun
Also called the space-time continuum, the four-dimensional continuum, having three spatial coordinates and one temporal coordinate, in which all physical coordinates may be located.
Welcome to Creative Continuum.
My life is shifting radically. I think it's been happening ever since I began teaching, as I have opened myself to the realization that I can do this - but in the past month or so it has picked up speed.
Then there was last week.
As my local friends know, the gallery I was associated with, Saccarappa, in Westbrook, closed its doors permanently at the end of 2014.
I was fully aware that the space left by its exit would quickly fill with opportunities. I considered several, including the opportunity to go to ground this winter, quietly and happily working on projects I had put off while painting a new exhibit every six weeks for the last two and a half years. This possibility was particularly attractive!
Then a new opportunity arrived. The storefront in the same building as my studio, 863 Main Street, also vacant since the end of 2014, was presented to me last Monday (Thank you, Andy Curran) for consideration as a teaching and exhibiting space of my own. Then on Wednesday a landlord (Thank you, Chris Grimm) who would be perplexed and embarrassed to be called a radical visionary, but is one anyway, got on board with a very tempting offer. As in, rent I could perhaps actually afford.
The name came to me immediately: Continuum. Creative Continuum, really - so people get an idea from the signage. But Continuum for short.
So have people also come, eager to partner and brainstorm. I love synergy.
I want simplicity. What I envision is a room with tables where I can teach all my classes and exhibit and (sometimes!) sell my work and that of my students. Contained in this room is time and space. Time to create. Space to create. Space and time to meet other artists. Some supplies. All of which can be accessed by the community whenever I'm not teaching something there.
I do not intend to work any harder, or any more than I do now, because I am happy in what I am doing: painting and teaching some classes.
What do you need to do art? You need a space and time dedicated to the effort. If you don't have space and time at home, this space will be available to you for work for a fee that I want to be reasonable - maybe $10 per hour. You can arrange to come in whenever there's room - and there will pretty much always be room unless a group is using the space - or you can schedule a time slot which will be yours for the month. And you can renew the slot for as long as you like. We will keep the rent paid and keep going.
If you want to use the room to teach your own class, or to have a party or a meeting, let's talk.
I have to tell you: really funny, not-so-funny, stuff has been happening to me lately.
One example: yesterday out of the blue a stranger called me. His mother, an artist, had passed away, and he wondered if he could find someone who would be interested in taking her supplies off his hands, and his friend (Thank you, Alice Persons) had given him my name. "It isn't paint or brushes," he explained deprecatingly. "I don't know if you could use it. You see, it's just a lot of easels and lights and things. "
I get tears in my eyes just typing this.
