I was being a little hard on myself recently, because I felt that I hadn’t made much art. I sat down at my studio desk to write a card for someone’s birthday and thought “I haven’t been here for a while, boy it feels good, and this paper feels great…”.
Then I realised that my big creative project for longer than 5 weeks has been a set of in-built shelves in my upstairs bedroom.
There’s an ancient chimney on one side of the wall, which juts out 22cm. I made a custom shelf to fit in that 22cm deep piece of wall. Sure I could have bodgied it up with some ikea, but I took up the challenge. The wall was built in the 1890s. it’s semi-impossible to drill into the walls to anchor anything – in fact this all began because the curtain rod fell down. My brother, who has the tradie skills, put up the curtain rod for me in 2023, and it fell down, so what hope did I have to make something that would stay anchored to the wall and not fall down?
So I applied my art-making skills to it, and designed a box that fit snugly inside the space, and then anchored it to the only place available, the window, and the wooden lintel above the window. I think I’m pretty safe that it won’t fall down now.
But the job took me a long time. And many osteopathic adjustments, due to the twisting and drilling atop a ladder.
The interesting thing for me was how excited I got at the beginning – I spent hours browsing pinterest for ideas. Went to my spare wood pile secreted on the front balcony. found my stash of lamp bases and interesting legs. I picked up some chairs in the street, because I got excited about some pinterest images of half chairs on walls. None of which I used, really. But the ideas are percolating.
In the end I have built a plain bookshelf, which I finally finished painting on Sunday. Now I’m populating it.
Here are some ideas from pinterest, a chair I picked up in the street, and some progress shots (i was sending my brother progress shots to seek advice on the carpentry and fixing of the whole thing). It was many trips to Bunnings. And in a year it will just be there. I’ve still got to add some trim (to cover up my less than expert joins – which my brother tells me is why trim exists).
The chair, which kinda started all of this has been cut in 2. I painted it white already, just in case, but it’s too wide for the shelf – which is 32cm on one side and 39cm on the other – and it turns out most chairs (based on those in my house) are 60cm wide. I may find a way to use it in the room or under the stairs, watch this space.
Meanwhile, at night while watching TV I have been colouring in on the electoral boundaries china-coated paper and a pack of 60 markers I bought at aldi.
