the dirt

Very excited to report that my Santa Cruz studio stuff has officially arrived to our property in Baja Sur. All nine pallets and some random pieces made their way across the border, the 1500 miles journey south with multiple loading and offloading. So far everything we’ve unpacked has been in good shape and it’s all there. Whew!

We’ve been working on painting the inside of the space so we can start to set things in their place. And while we still don’t have power, sewer or water hooked up yet, I’m still thrilled to be able to start to set up my space.

When we’re not working on studio projects, we’ve been enjoying walking and fishing at the beach, eating locally caught fish and freshly made tortillas and watching the whales make their migrations. It’s not to shabby here and we’re soaking it all in!

After nearly a week of travel, we finally arrived at our property in Baja Sur and are so happy to be here! We’re reconnecting with friends and our property, as well as settling in Bowie to Baja life.

One of the most exciting parts was being able to see my studio build in person. For months we have received photos and videos from our builder but it was a whole different feeling to be able to walk through the space ourselves. The main structure is nearly complete and has spectacular views of the ocean & desert. I can’t wait for my supplies and equipment to arrive so I can start being creative in this space. Here’s a few pics of the space…

So the studio is pretty fabulous, but our very empty beach is a pretty sweet spot to start the day with a dog walk too.

It was a very productive week here at the studio. We packed up and palletized all of our large tools and tables, got everything loaded up into a ginormous U-Haul and my husband Nate drove it all to our international shipper at the border. It was a very long day for him, but a relief to finally get our things on their way and get the studio mostly cleared out.

Of course it didn’t stay cleared out for very long, since I still have all of my flower parts for my Feast of Flowers installation that still needed finishing. All six flower heads were moved from the metal yard to the studio and I was able to attach all of the ceramic elements. These will all be stored here until the foundations are ready for installation.

Now, we’re packing up all the little things and getting ready to make our first trip south very soon. Scenes of the desert, cactus and sunsets over the ocean coming soon!

The studio has gone through many transitions over the past few weeks, sometimes you can see the floor and sometimes you can’t. Sometimes there’s a place to sit and sometimes there’s not. Sometimes the place to sit is in a box.

We are exhausted by all the sorting and packing but slowly everything seems to be getting organized and boxed up. We’ve spent days hunting for the perfectly sized pallet, loaded up boxes only to unload them again because we forgot to photograph them for the inventory list and gratefully closed the lid on a box knowing it was for the last time. Most of the big items, like my kilns are ready to go to the international shipper, and the little things will follow. Trusting that we’ve got this even though it doesn’t always feel like it!

Believe it or not, this flat-packed pile of wood is my ginormous 7’x 7′ studio table with two huge shelves under it. I can’t believe that I’m shipping a load of lumber to Baja, but I love this table and I know it’s the first thing I’m going to want to have when I’m setting up my new space. Hundreds of students and studio visitors have gathered around this table over the past 15+ years, so it’s full of positive vibes and I think it’d be a sin to not bring it with me.