The Quiet Rebuild

I stepped away from the studio for over a year.

There were good reasons. A baby. Two moves. A long stretch where the work had to wait while everything else came first. For a while the studio wasn't a studio at all. It had become storage, with boxes stacked against the wall, half-finished pieces turned to face it, and brushes I hadn't touched in months.

Coming back wasn't one decision. It was a slow return.

The space came first. So the studio is a converted nook off the kitchen. Before this house, I painted for over a year in a three-foot corner of my parents' place. A small room doesn't stop the work. I know that by now.

So I cleared the nook. Cabinet emptied, a drop cloth down, the work back up where I can see it. It isn't a grand room. But it's mine again, and that was enough to begin.

The things I keep returning to, cultural identity, memory, the meaning we carry in the objects around us, none of it went anywhere during the pause. If anything, it deepened. Watching the way things have unfolded in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran made these questions feel more urgent, not less.

I used to think starting again meant rushing to catch up. This time I'm not. I'm letting the work set the pace. Plaster takes as long as it takes to dry, and I've stopped fighting that. I build in layers, plaster, then pigment, then more plaster, and I move between the wall, the floor, and the easel depending on what the piece needs. I stand back between passes to see what the light does to the surface. Some of that is slow on purpose. Most of it is just how the material works.

The first thing I'm doing is finishing what I already started. There are pieces I began before everything paused, and they've been sitting with me this whole time. It felt right to complete those before reaching for anything new. So that's the work right now, one piece at a time.

In the quiet days, I'd started to experiment with oils. I reached for it on a recent commission, not expecting much, and it just surprised me. It's here to stay in my practice now. I'm not ready to say everything about where it's going yet, but it's the next thread, and I'll show it as it comes.

That's what the rebuild looks like from the inside. Quiet, unhurried, and mine.

If you want to follow it, I send occasional studio notes when there's something real to share, new work, what I'm learning, and pieces as they're ready. No noise, just the work.