Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Light, I need light

I have always been sensitive to the lack of sunlight and I am feeling the loss of it very much this week. Every day since the week end it has been over cast with rain or the threat thereof. Journaling last night before bed made me realize just how much the lack of light is affecting me again. I knew when I set my studio space up here that I was not going to have the wonderful lighting that I had in Louisville. But hey, I thought I had solved the problem with the floor lamps from Big Lots. But I haven't. It was always high noon on a sunny day in my Louisville studio even at 3 am but not so here. I realized too that if I am going to be dyeing fabric in the garage that has no windows I will need an additional source of light beside the one bulb in the ceiling on my side of the garage. I opened the door last week to let in light, but I also let in every fly in the neighborhood too.
Generally about 9:30 I am ready for bed because there is not enough light to fool my wake sleep cycle. My friend Marti thinks that that's a good thing, I am now in tune with the majority of the world. But despite me being up early I am not in tune or tuned in. My creative juices simply do not flow in the morning no matter how early my feet hit the floor. Most day the desire to simply move my butt from the bed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee does not present itself until nearly 10 am.
I have always been the most productive after 4PM and now because of the lack of light I only have a 3-4 hour window to work. I do not work well in starts and stops. I prefer long stretches of uninterrupted time. Light, I need light, I journaled. The lack of light is cutting into my productive time.
So this morning remembering my journaling from the night before, I went off to Lowe's to see what I could come up with as supplemental lighting that would not alter the room I am using. Yet give me the sense that the sun is shining not matter what time of day or night it is. I made three trips to Lowe's trying out various set ups. Halogen bulbs gave me the best light, but Boy are they HOT. I could heat a small country with the heat that came from just one light, I would have been the sole cause of global warming if I had plugged in all three that I brought. Back they went. The cute curly fluorescent I brought home next did not give off enough light so my last purchase for today was two 120 watt fluorescent flood light and clap on metal fixtures. This is the least attractive of the three options, but I am not looking for cute. I am looking for serviceability. I will let you know how they work for me since it is now after 10 pm and with all my running back and forth to Lowe's I have spent all of 30 minutes in the studio, with most of the time spent cleaning and oiling my machine. I'm going to see if I can get in a couple of hours, maybe more if the light is good enough.

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