WHERE PEOPLE CREATE

Yesterday, instead of spending time in my own wee little studio, John and I got to go snooping around five or six others, as part of Wimberley Valley Art League's annual Studio Tour. I'm a voyeur at heart, so I go, not to see the art so much (though that is sometimes fairly awesome), but more to get that peek behind the curtains -- to get a glimpse of where and how people create, and the materials which they use. Yes, I get high on seeing their various stashes of art supplies, and the ways in which they store and organize them. No two are alike, and the spaces can run the gamut from a converted garden shed tucked into the woods behind a mobil home, to a custom built dream studio. However, if there's one thing I have learned over the years, it's that amazing art can happen anywhere.

That's my pal Julie, conducting an interview.

In the "dream studio" category was this recently completed one, which happens to belong to one of my Muse buddies, Julie Underriner (a.k.a. Painting Woman). She's the one who does most of her paintings by draping an un-stretched canvas over several stools, pouring the paint on, then using the stools to roll it around. There are no brushes involved. I showed you the co-operative gallery in town, that she is a part of, a few weeks ago, but this is the space where she actually works her magic. She and I both had mother-in-laws who were artists, which is such a blessing for creative types. It means our hubbies are never shocked or horrified by our creative needs and compulsions.

Fiber Woman was there to assist with the crowds and answer questions.

She had a pretty good studio in the basement of their old stone house overlooking the Blanco, but when they closed out their Houston home and moved here full time, her hubby needed a place for his pool table, so she got this new studio in exchange. Probably just as well, since her paintings are all rather large, and she was already getting pretty tired of lugging them up and down the stairs to her old studio. One thing I love most about the new space, well, other than the shelves and drawers full of every kind of arty goodness, are the marvelous double screen doors you see above. I'm so sorry I didn't think to snap a picture of them from the outside, so you could see the beautiful carving on the lower half. My house really, really needs some screen doors. Not only would it be great for letting in the fabulous fall breezes we've been having this week, it would also help cut down on the number of nasty critters that find their way into our house, whenever our hands are full and we can't get the regular doors shut quickly enough.

I had been here a couple of times while the studio was being built, but this was my first time to see it completed with all her stuff in it, and now that I have, there is this one niggling thought that I just can't seem to shake. MUSE SLUMBER PARTY!