studio 4

We moved our studio again. I'm in the middle of a painting and we packed everything up, away from the window with the flowers, down to a brick basement. It's cool; it's also dark. It won't be the last time we move this year either. My husband and I are used to shuffling around. Playful games of Tetris with all of our belongings (my sunroof is cracked from piling our lives on top of my car over and over again, but I love the red tape we've put over it. Truly). This side effect of living in limbo while we wait on Nic's immigration decision has taken its toll at times, but mostly with our art practices.

Liminality is a concept we talk about often. My husband loves hotels because they exist in a perpetual state of transition—spaces meant to be occupied briefly before moving on. But the extended liminality of our situation is different. It stretches on, untethered, neither here nor there. It’s exhausting. How do you build something lasting when you don’t even know where you’ll be? How do you create when everything feels impermanent?

I think about a painting I saw at a museum recently. When you put your nose to the canvas, it’s all scribbles. Literal nonsense. But when you step back, it transforms into a lush garden scene. It struck me how much distance changes perspective—how something can feel incomprehensible in the moment but reveal a clear image when given space. One face in the painting was just a simple smiley face up close, a detail I never would have noticed had I not examined it carefully. It felt like an inside joke. One that’s maybe just for painters, or magicians, or alchemists, and bread bakers.

That painting has been stuck in my mind. Sometimes, you have to step back. You have to realize that you need the space to see the object. Suddenly I'm reminded of my time as a teenager taking copious amounts of acid and listening to Alan Watts. Amazing that something you hear over and over again—"stop and smell the roses," things like that—really take practice. The basic things always do. So I'm trying to build up that strength. Flex my muscles. Practice the patience I just learned about.

It’s hard to step back when everything around you demands output, production, proof of worth. In a capitalist society, productivity is equated with value—your relevance measured in numbers, sales, engagement, pieces completed. Art becomes data points, and self-worth can feel like an algorithm to be solved. But this machine needs more than numbers. It needs sunlight and walks and flowers and good food. It needs rain and time to be still.

So I’m trying to take my own advice. To sit with this moment, as uncomfortable as it is, and trust that with enough distance, a picture will emerge. In the meantime, I keep painting, keep observing, and keep reminding myself that even in uncertainty, there’s something taking shape. I just might not see it yet.

“It felt like an inside joke. One that’s maybe just for painters, or magicians, or alchemists, and bread bakers.”