Making Do

My wife is an artist. Since moving into our apartment years ago, she really hasn’t done much art. We are very limited on space. (Being on the second floor, I don’t juggle as much, either.)

It would be really easy to not do much at all in our one-bedroom apartment. And yet, we make do. (Because really, we have it good — even in our small space…)

Always Art

My wife and I met in 1992, when we both worked at a tiny independent comic book company. She always had an art table set up…until we moved into the apartment. Her other big creative endeavor is sewing historical costumes. When she shifted her focus to sewing, her old art table went into our storage closet on the balcony.

That always bothered me because I knew her as an artist before I knew her as anything. She knew my writing before she knew me. So…there was a bit of sting in my gut the day she put her art table up. And…a bit of an excitement in my heart when I saw her pull her table out of storage.

Ideal Conditions (Are Overrated)

Sometimes the ideal conditions don’t exist. I’ll go as far as saying for most of us, ideal conditions don’t exist.

Cynthia’s art table is in the living room, right in front of the fireplace. She sits on a little cube storage cube when she draws. No side table for her ink…she wheels out a cart full of fabric and sets ink on it, hoping for no spills because fabric can be expensive. The lighting isn’t ideal. The spot is in the noisiest part of the apartment.

Yet, in this less-than-ideal spot — after years of not doing art — her second piece since her return looks like this:

Thorin Oakenshield: Weight of the World by ~cfgriffith on deviantART

Making Do With What You Have…

The image above doesn’t do the piece justice
. My wife’s old scanner is not compatible with any of our current computers, so she had to take a quick photo. The lighting in the spot is poor, and the camera — while decent — isn’t going to get the best image.

But that’s what you do when making do…

And moving forward…