Earlier this week, Sharon posted a beautiful art cabinet on her blog her husband made her and she wondered where everybody else paints. And so here I’m showing my atelier. Since I don’t post photo’s on Africantapestry, I present two sketches here that I did this morning and then I got tired. There is just too much detail and I took forever to decide what to sketch and how and how much – too many decisions for me. If you’re interested in seeing photographs of my atelier you can go to Myfrenchkitchen, where they are listed under “My atelier” on the sidebar.

Having this little space, which is my private little niche in the world, forces me to bend the knee before some daily rituals. I’ve come to enjoy them, look forward to doing them, meditate them. For most people it will simply be impractical schlepp. I love them. Lighting the fire every morning in the cold, wet winters…. cleaning the fireplace every morning in winter….waiting for the atelier to heat up, in the meantime fetching my coffee and the cats, opening and closing the vents for the heating, checking the humidity levels, chasing out unwelcome spiders. Even Hartman has to dance to the rythm of my atelier. He always has a stack of chopped wood ready for me in the cave and small pieces in my basket for starting the fire. He even lights the fire in the mornings – the deeper we move into winter, the more he misses his morning train, the more it becomes my ritual. Here in my place of rituals, life forces me to slow down. It’s a place where I am surrounded by memories of the past and inspirations for the future.  It is here where I dream and try to paint it. Write it. It is here where I allow all my multiple personalities to roam free. Unfortunately… we roam too much, dream too much and achieve too little.

Hartman transformed the old stable in the back of our garden into an atelier for me just a few steps of years ago. I helped of course…did all the designing and supervising! We restored the old beams, the walls, the old manger, the fireplace. Hartman installed heating (fed from the fireplace), plumbing for an old porcelain sink, electricity, high speed internet connection, overhead lighting, a bookshelf from an old ladder found in the cave. We dismantled a bedroom dresser of my mother and turned it into a cabinet holding the sink. A couch from Hartman’s parents, armchairs from his grandparents,  lamps, an easel, a farmtable, a little coffee table from my childhood……and I had my atelier; a place where everyting has a heartbeat of it’s own. A place of rituals.