My Lovely Messy Little Place of Work

I had a sudden urge to tidy up yesterday and my painting room is strangely organised this morning. My studio is a little room in my house, it once was a bedroom when my boys were babies but now it is too small for their long lanky legs so I claimed the small bedroom for me and my mess. 

I was born messy and disorganised, my mum would tell me off endlessly about it but none of her protests worked - my bedroom was always a terrible tip. My Nan used to assure me charitably that it was the dreamy mind of an artist that made me so, others told me I was just born lazy. 

I used to work as a paste up artist for an advertising agency, that job no longer exists as computers can now do the job of creating layouts for shampoo bottles and yogurt pots in a fraction of the time it used to take us by hand. 

The type used to be given to us in long reams of paper which we had to slice up with scalpels to stick onto the artwork to go to print. My desk was a wild sticky mess of cut up paper, glue, sticky tape, petrol, empty mugs and chocolate wrappers. My boss would mutter sometimes but he couldn't really say too much as my artwork was always pristine and neat despite the chaos it was created in.

So now I am left up to my own devices, I unsurprisingly still work in a complete and utter mess. Art can be a messy business but sometimes I wish I could be a tiny bit better organised. Every so often I have a blitz and tidy it all up, feeling very pleased with myself for about 2 or 3 days and then it all just creeps back. To be honest I usually only tidy up when I'm lost for inspiration and I am avoiding drawing something that I don't know how to approach. Now, if I'm in a drawing mood, tidying up simply doesn't ever come into the equation...