How I finally got my ‘dream house-slash-studio’

Rebecca, 40 x 40” / 101.6 x 101.6cm, Acrylic on Canvas, 2019

Dreaming isn’t doing. It can be the start of doing, like, you’ll start doing because you were dreaming it, but until you take actual, purposeful steps toward making them come true, they’re ‘just’ dreams.

When I was a kid I used to say that I’d work really hard until I was 30, live off of what I’d saved working real hard until I was 40, and then die. I’m 45 now, so I guess I didn’t take those actual, purposeful steps, haha.

As I write this, I can’t help thinking about two things. The first is my first post on the jillablog, which I wrote about this same time two years ago. That was when the, I won’t say ‘first’ thing, but I would say ‘thing with the greatest impact’ occurred to set all of this in motion.

The second is my last show, Aviary, where I painted a lot of birdcages which, while it really had been something I’d always wanted to do, just felt ‘fitting’ or most suited to the times, at the time.

Looking back, I guess I really sort of can trace how everything led to me being here, two weeks in (and two years since) to my finally starting to settle down in what I’m trying to set up as my own little studio-slash-home.

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