Cleaning up / organizing the studio is always difficult, and particularly so in summer sunshine.  Usually June in the PNW is a fine time for indoor cleaning (i.e. cool and gray outside), but not this year.  And making things for various family & friend events has contributed extra projects this year:  from sewing to printing photos, and more… so for whatever reason, the stuff in my studio has become a foot deep on every surface, and is piling up on the floor!  Unacceptable!

I finally have time to myself, and I have managed to catch up in the yard and in the house, but I found myself still postponing the studio cleanup! So I manufactured an art project crisis:  I needed a particular tool (the need was not manufactured) to scrape and clean an uncured plaster cast just out of the mold.  And I could not find it!

It is a recently acquired tool, for which I have not settled on a permanent storage spot:  does it go in the general shallow tool drawer?  in the small drawer of specialized carving knives and rotarty cutter and ___?  Or does go in a cup with a pair of scissors, along with a few sharpies & pencils?  Or does it go on a carry case for art class and art while traveling?

So many places to look for this, and it was not in the first several locations. So I thought chances are it lying on one of three work surfaces, just buried under the piles of “stuff”!  Or even on the floor behind one work area, where all kinds of paper, foil, cloth etc. gets pushed aside, then off the table!

Now the studio is much cleaner!  I can see the work surface between the remaining items on my tables, and even the floor is looking a bit clearer.

And I did find the tool. Not hidden under all that stuff I put away or through out, but safely tucked into that art travel box that I take with me each week to Wednesday evening Art!   I postponed looking there until I managed to put in almost two hours clearing away that “stuff”. My studio is still a mess, but it is much much better now!

Here is the fruit of my most recent procrastination, which is also the project that initiated the cleanup (when I really needed that small Blick snap-off knife). This is a clay sculpture created by Michael, and cast & reproduced by me.