The Cowshed Chronicles

If you read my original post about this on Facebook, scroll below to find out what I decided to do.

While most people are out doing things with their families, enjoying the sunshine, going to parties or recovering from hangovers (in my household at least), I cannot stop painting. That is what I have done morning, noon and night, for the whole of last weekend.

I clear the kitchen table, then an hour later it’s all out again. I cannot get to my desk in my office for tripping over easels and tripods. If I could get there, it’s covered in brushes and sketchpads. The patio is covered in art and brushes drying.

Every room is full of art, I cannot sell it fast enough to create the room I need to make more. I need an obsessed-with-buying-my-art collaborator, but I would quickly bankrupt her.

My family are not impressed.

This is the upside and downside of being autistic. Incredible bouts of creativity coupled with an almost manic obsession.

It goes beyond funny at times when I can’t walk the dog or sleep at night or hold a conversation because all I can think about is getting back to the paints. My daughter has this too with her sewing; wanting to stop but unable to. Not wanting to stop…ever.

I think this is why autistic people have amazing skills, in one tiny specialist area of our lives. We get our 10,000 hours in inside a month.

For me, I know this obsession could vanish tomorrow with zero warning and be replaced with, I don’t know, igloo building or creating terrariums or collecting monkeys. I want to drink in all the beautiful colours I’m making right now while I can.

But I’d also like to sleep.

When I first posted this on Facebook, the overwhelming response was ‘Get yourself some studio space….’

I dismissed it right away as one obviously should with every new idea that doesn’t fit with our current reality.

But then…..I had a sneaky thought. What about the Cowshed?

This is a large, falling down building to the side of our house that we currently use to keep random bits of wood and metal that we might need one day, crossing our fingers that the roof/walls don’t fall in until we win the lottery (any day now).

You can see it in the video above.

What if I could convert that into a workroom for creating art (or collecting monkeys if the need arose)? With a little bathroom (as I have to wee about three times an hour), running water and electricity and a banging sound system. With heaps of storage for all my half-projects currently stored on top of wardrobes and under beds throughout the house. And an area that could be converted into a retreat/office/gallery space?

Well, yes, it’s the perfect solution. Right under my nose.

If only I could win the lottery.

Not to be daunted by the small problem of being without the £50K I imagine it will take to get the place habitable, and with the sensible husband who has already pointed out fifteen things we’d be far better off spending our money on…..I’m taking on the challenge and will be documenting the journey here each week inside what will now be known as The Cowshed Chronicles.

The journey of taking an idea and turning it, against all the odds, into a something.

Turning the formless into form.

Investing time and money into something that will eventually pay me dividends.

Creating the impossible, some might even say.

Hopefully it will be a humorous life-affirming Substack to follow. With weekly cliff-hangers. Or it could all turn to shit and tears inside two weeks.

That’s the thing about heading into the unknown, there is no way to know.

I have a hunch this will be one of those projects you look back on and think ‘I wish I’d written about that right from the start.’ Totally missed the boat on that one with my children, so the Cowshed will have to do instead.

I’m up for if you are.

Any ‘Go girl, you can do it!’ (or even better ‘I’ve just won the lottery and I’d like to give it all to you for this project’) style comments very welcome below.

Music: Lovely Piano Song Musician: Rafael Krux Site: https://freepd.com/ License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode