We had a visit from hurricane Zeta at the end of last month. Our home was fine, but the studio, only a few yards away and attached to the house by a fence and gate, were hit by a tree that was twisted off its thick trunk to fall across the roof and skylights.
The tree punched a hole in the roof.
My son, who had a half-dozen very large trees uprooted at his home, only a few miles away, came to cut the tree away from the roof and cover the hole with the ubiquitous blue tarp.
Life at Studio 508 has been muted since "The Fall." The interior suffered light damage, but the impact must have been really startling to the inanimate objects beneath the ceiling. In my line of DMC thread boxes, threads were shifted about an inch to the right, or toward the front of the building, and books on the back wall of book shelves moved forward, all following the pattern the shock waves must have made through the little building. We have waited for these past weeks for insurance response, and we hope for the repairs to begin on Monday.
Add to the studio blues: this all happened just before Halloween, on a Wednesday night, and we were without power until Sunday morning.
In this time I have learned how important it is to understand the way we work, to know what physical accommodations we need to make for giving ourselves a space to create. I need a lot of light that must not be from the front because the glare blinds me. And a table is a must, a large, clear space. Finding the right threads is a matter of having selections fanned out around me, or available just behind my chair so I can turn to make selections. Of course, none of that was been possible in our home without power. Even after power was restored, I stopped bringing in bowls of threads and fabrics from the studio since projects can't be accomplished in the house space.
Fingers crossed for commencement of work on Monday, and a prayer of thanksgiving for people who want to work and help to fix our small mess. And, as Thanksgiving week begins on Monday, how appropriate is that?
