While I was hoping 2013 would start off giving me more time to draw (it hasn’t- I’ve been updating the challenge cache list on IndianaGeocaching.com again, and again, and again.) I took some of the school break to rework my studio. This was nice until Sue and I went out for lunch one day. There’s a quirky little neighborhood in Indianapolis called Fountain Square. I have the right to call it “quirky” since I was told my beloved and also somewhat quirky grandmother grew up in the area. Since then urban blight hit it and now it has returned being a neat place for evenings and a number of my friends who are home brewers hang out there. As we were eating lunch at the Red Lion Grog House Sue noticed a new store across the street. The window had ginormous sock monkeys in the window which since Cecil was with us is always a draw. We came in a looked around Rogue Decor and was suitably impressed. While there were some of the typical trendy things you see in other shops, this place had some really unique items. Some things caught my eye for school since they were re-engineered pieces or looking very mechanical. Others caught my eye for me. I bought a little spiral notebook made for the cover of an old book ‘My First Science Experiments.” I buy these things and never use them… I never want to ruin the pristine pages- someday that will change. As we walked out I took one more look around especially focusing on the old drafting table in the front.
We were back the next week looking around again before going out to another old downtown neighborhood with some friends, and Sue asked “So are you going to regret not getting this?” My answer was a simple “Probably.” The next thing we did was buy the drafting table. Here’s the thing- as you might already know- I have a drafting table. It’s nice, it’s new, it’s got a glass top, it’s got a lot of storage, and it’s now housed in the “Pit of Despair” aka the basement.
You see when I first set up my studio years ago I had figured out the table I wanted to draw on, it was sleek, it was modern, and it was a lot of money. Sue actually bought it for me as a “Birthday/Christmas present”, but due to issues with acquiring the correct Russian birch for the veneer, they canceled the order, gave her back her money and that was that. A few years later I decided to go with something almost as good… A nice glass topped drafting ordered on line, put together by me, and I have enjoyed it for years now. It just wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned. It was functional, it was modern and while nice, I knew it wasn’t the table I would keep for the rest of my life. You see creative geeks sometimes get fond of the materials they use. A specific kind of pen, pencil or brush. My glass drafting table did the job, but it was missing something- I can’t describe it, it just was.
This “new” drafting table I see as one I will keep until it is sold in an estate sale when I die. I have yet to draw on it, but like when I first pulled up in my MINI and someone said “That’s exactly the car I could picture you driving” this is exactly the drafting table I could picture myself drawing on. I’m taking today to get the Studio organized again to make way for the new addition and figure out “workflow” and “ergonomics”, and big important words like that. I’ll post pictures once it is here and set up and update this blog post. Hopefully this will bring about a new inspiration for My Geek Odyssey.