farm management: Christening the Studio with the First Class of 2010

The first weekend has come and gone. The five fabulous students are winging their way back home or on further New England adventures. We are rested up and back to our normal lives already having done two Farmer's Markets selling our lamb meat. I've been thinking back on the adventure of the past few months and really quite amazed at all we have accomplished with a whole bunch of help from my fabulous contractor Kevin Gray. I feel like I have been on a never-ending treadmill. It's not a bad feeling because I like to be busy and making things happen. I'm an idea person and so it is really easy for me to come up with the ideas. It is putting the ideas into motion and actually acting on them that is difficult.

Here is my finished studio early in the morning on Saturday set up for the students. Isn't the light beautiful? It just pours in the windows. I barely have to turn the lights on until later in the day.

Here you can see the giant table Kevin built and I painted the day before full of notebooks and folders. I'm sure some of you are wondering why I painted the studio all white considering my love of color. Because this is a work space with a giant work table (on wheels), I will be using it for creating my colorful work. I find it necessary to have a neutral background to work in so I can feel free to combine all the colors I want to without having the space I am working in conflict with the work.

Here is the view out the studio windows to the garden and field beyond. It is a lovely setting.

I had five wonderful students who began taking it all in from 9 a.m. Saturday morning. They traveled from near and far. Kathy from MA, Louisa from CT, Laura from PA, Margaret from VT and Jackie from IL. I have been anticipating meeting them all and sharing our lifestyle with them. We began with a farm tour given by The Farmer. I'll just say that he is getting a little more comfortable talking with people about our farming operation. He gave a really good overview on what he is trying to do and accomplish. Last year he was a bit shy and quiet with his presentation but not this year. In his quiet way, he spoke passionately about agriculture, caring for the land and the animals, and producing a good product.

We went back into the house and grabbed some coffee and homemade snacks (provided by my good friend Cathy Payson) and took a quick tour of our home with its hand-painted walls and my various collections. Our house is a lesson in color and pattern itself. It is impossible to bring it to a workshop 100 miles from here. That's one reason I cooked up these classes - so that I could use it as a teaching tool.

Then we headed down to the new Studio space and began working. We began with a talk on color and a color in nature exercise. It was a great way to start to help everyone begin to develop their own color sense.

We broke for a fabulous lunch of grilled chicken and farm grown veggies prepared by my good friend Linda Pratt, assisted by my good friend Alice Gray. They out-did themselves. All I can say is "Thank you Linda and Alice" a million times over.