Nightmare in Ellensburg! Part One

I was buried under paper!  Every horizontal surface in my studio was covered with piles of paper and paintings and books, and God knows what else!  It was dangerous to go in there at night because of the bags of unfinished paintings and projects on the floor, just waiting to trip me; and the trail was so crowded with  frames leaning against walls and shelves I was bound to be injured badly if Iblundered into something in the dark!  Only the drafting table was relatively clear (because it’s not horizontal), and even there the flood of paper was making  inroads.  Just when I thought I couldn’t stand another minute of the horror – I woke up.

Alas, it was all too real.

And just when I thought I couldn’t stand another minute of the real horror, an angel of mercy descended in the form of our daughter Ellen, an accomplished calligrapher, musician and organizer extraordinaire, who announced that directly after our family brunch on Sunday morning, Phase One of “Studio Scrapeout” would commence.

She was not kidding.  Right after the table was cleared she snapped into action, and her boyfriend and her Dad fled the scene!

Within minutes the dining room table was covered with piles of paintings, papers and books and other things to be sorted, boxes had been dragged out of shelves, emptied and piled in a corner awaiting new (organized) uses, and chaos reigned.  She actually wanted me to put like with like!  Can you believe it?

I’m pretty sure that at one point I heard her say “Get a rake”, but that could have been an echo in my own mind – a flashback to her early childhood when I suggested that a rake would be a useful tool for cleaning her bedroom floor!

Note to self:  Be careful what you say, it may come back to haunt you.

After several hours of torture (sorting, boxing and labeling), I whined that dinner still had to be made and served, and we needed to clean off the table if anyone was going to eat.  Ellen had mercy.  We cleaned off the table, finding logical places in the studio for all the piles of stuff, and then she collected her long-suffering boyfriend and with hugs all around said “See you tomorrow Mom – I’ll call”.

To be continued…..