THIS HOUSE IS A SCULPTURE

As we started adjusting the floor support beams to create a level floor in our bathroom, we discovered the water rot that resulted from an earlier flood (this one happened prior to us purchasing the house. If you've been around a while and keeping track, were up to at least two floods that have come from this bathroom 😑) was much worse than it initially appeared on the surface. This has of course dominoed (yet again) and we find ourselves needing to repair even more before we can begin putting this damn bathroom back together.

Two steps forward, one step back.

C'est la vie.

When this all began, I saw this as a house that needed rebuilding. Upgrading. Remodeling. And in usual form, these projects tend to have unexpected issues that only are revealed as the layers are pulled up, ripped out and removed.

As I am neither a carpenter or builder, I'd find myself quickly spiriling with panic at every hiccup, roadblock and detour that we would hit along the way. Each one fully convincing me that we'd for sure bitten off more than we could chew and we'd end up with a house falling down around us, broken beyond repair and so far in the hole financially we'd forever be screwed.

(Yes, cross an issue, no matter how big or small, and I will absolutely spiral that quickly.)

Interestingly, the further along this project progresses and the more I discover how the inner workings of a house, well, WORK, along the way, the more I've begun to see our house as nothing more than one giant sculpture.

Sure, the materials may be slightly different, requiring slightly different tools than I usually use... nope, that's not even really true.

I've used all the same tools either to build my own canvases or when I was on a build team where we erected a very large sculpture made from wood.

Sure, the SCALE is definitely larger than anything I've done before...nope, that's not really true either because I'm pretty sure that wood troll sculpture I worked on with that build team would not fit in our bathroom.

Okay, so maybe the complexity of all that goes into a project like this with all the plumbing and electrical work make it a little different. But even with that, at the end of the day, it's all comes down to nothing more than an understanding of how something exists within and interacts with the space it occupies.

Boom.

Art.

Art I can do.

And suddenly, the panic is gone.

The fear of this project becoming overwhelming and completely undoable disappears. Because while I don't have a clue as to how to build a house, making art - that I do have an idea (or two) how to do.

And just like one of my paintings, maybe it takes us a week, maybe it takes us two years to finish. Either way, it will get done.....fingers crossed it's not two years though.

On another plus side, these old rusted nails I pulled from the water-rotted support beam are lovely and already have the cogs turning with inspiration for some new assemblage-based pieces.