So here's a picture that shows the studio at a fairly typical level of mess, shot on 22sep2015:
I was interested in the way the light caught the translucent red rod stuck into the kiln rather than capturing how messy it was; but you can see the piles of rods, the cardboard trays of stringers, the fact that several presses are sitting out. (And the stringing desk is considerably worse.)
It's not terrible; because I primarily use sodalime glass, and Frances boro, we don't get to the truly staggering levels of mess that some lampworkers achieve: Frances told me about some boro lampworker who posted the 3 to 4 inches deep (that's 10 centimeters) worth of rod ends, tubing, frit, broken glass and whatnot that made up his torching area. I've never seen with my own eyes anyone much deeper than a quarter inch (8–10mm) or so but as a rule the studio we use never gets that bad because I (usually) work soda-lime, (104 as a rule) and Frances (usually) works boro; moreover, Frances will often use my station if she's working alone (rather than switching torches) if she needs the more-powerful lynx.
Traditionally, I do a deep tidy (not clean) of the studio around the spring equinox. This year's was kind of disappointing (though at least I finally posted some pix of the new bead curtain.) One of the things I love about the studio is the 8’ doorwall; in order to have more glass and less frame, I got a wooden version, which really needed some love and attention. As did the studio plants (and the painted table many of them sit on.)
Immediately to the left as you enter the room: note the abstract painting of the mopboard, light switch cover, (and in fact all of the room's trim) as well as the mapcase (which I use to store glass), and further back a little chest of drawers, used to store tools.[1]
About a month ago, I touched up the plant table, trimmed, divided and repotted the studio plants, and rearranged them into a tidier cluster (so that, among other things, they'd stop stabbing Frances:) Last week f2tE kindly started on the doorwall, cleaning the glass, sanding and putting on the first coat of polyurethane. I sporadically added more, finally requesting the wizard to remove the screen from its tracks so I could repair the mesh and do a really good job on that.
from the doorway, towards the main torch station; the stringing desk is in the background.
Showing the tidied up plants and freshly polyurethaned doorwall.[2]
Then, I tidied up the stringing desk this morning. (To be honest, since only I use that part, it's usually by far the worst, since it doesn't need to be cleaned up so someone else can use it.)
It's six months late, but I finally got a really neat and tidy studio. I'm actually considering putting some polyurethane on the floor.
[1]This started out rainbow, to match the room's original beadcurtain, but now that I'm replacing that with one in pinks, ambers & greens, I'm toying—just toying, mind you—with redoing the trim. In any event, I never managed the purple and lime colour scheme I'd originally envisioned for the room, and now that I have all that ivory stuff by the stringing desk, a faded pink and green look would probably work better. —comment added 19sep17; otherwise the post was photographed & written in 28Sep2015.
[2]Oh, ghods, does that trim around the doorwall look over-saturated and awful...
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
