May is coming on like a tsunami.

It’s coming fast,..Three days!! SO fast!! l’m in an adrenaline fueled work frenzy!! A whole lot to accomplish in a hurry…

It’s a real creative process, an evolution. Momentum and enthusiasm in good supply. Raw material and passion but with no real plan. That’d drive the “type A” folks in my life straight up a wall and down again but l’m just letting it all unfold. Every dawn a new adventure. Such fun!

I have no capitol to speak of. I began with a a decade and a half of clutter, dust and squirrel nests in a shed with no electrical and next to no light. It has the strangest doorways imaginable. One door is so tiny that l come in sideways. The other is a full double barn door.

There has been much to clear out, then much to scrub and clean. Anywhere possible l repurposed my findings. I’ve held on to packrat bits and pieces accumulated over far too much time, yet now at last, every bit of it has found a place. I wake up at five just itching for daylight so l can go out and get to work.

I have always been able to adapt. Four kids and no life plan would’ve been a recipe for disaster if l couldn’t manage to move with the ebb and flow of life.

The walls are rough milled “board and batten” construction. There are so many toothy, thirsty surfaces that it took three days and four gallons of paint to give it a mere whitewashing.

These same walls are not ideal for hanging art. Another hurdle to work around. With some scavenging, l found a bunch of randomly sized pieces of scrap plywood, l have sanded and painted these in muted earth colors. I will fix these panels to the studs to provide a more practical, complimentary surface on which to hang my work. Some old shelves have had fresh and corresponding paint and even more scrap wood will be fashioned into a few extra shelves.

My sales counter is two thirds of what was once a freestanding closet. Sliced lengthwise through at one side of the door and turned on its side. Adapt or die baby!!

LOTS of thinking outside the box. LOTS of coloring WAY outside the lines. At the moment it’s a jumble of tools and paint buckets. And these are my tools because l’m the only handyman on this property!! I mean, l’m not Mike Holmes but l get it done.

As l have mentioned l have no real plan, just a lifelong dream for my own little corner to shine from. Things are really, near miraculously, falling into place.

Stay tuned. The puzzle that must be solved after the walls and surfaces are up will be to figure out a way to light a whole shop with one construction grade extension cord!

I will contemplate this puzzle from the ancient rocking chair of my great uncle Delphin Aucoin, a fellow artist and an inspiration to me since before l could pick up a pencil. Like me his space was simple. Soon, I’ll place this near my shop’s woodstove, as it was in his home years ago. For now, l will sit right here and contemplate my long to-do list.