Rescued

When we moved back to the Midwest several years ago I planned to have my studio in my home rather than rent a separate spot like I did in CA. Since most of the homes have basements, it seemed so obvious and easy. What I did not imagine was that so many of the basements had been remodeled in such an upscale manner, totally unsuitable to a studio. I mean I was used to concrete floors stained with paint. And I liked it that way.

The house we eventually bought also had a remodeled basement but it was not as nice as some of the others, no "media" room, thank goodness, no expensive floor treatments. The carpet (yes, it is carpeted) was old, kind of a dusty looking berber imitation, creamy in color if you can imagine. John gave me permission to trash it because he knew I would feel inhibited in my process otherwise.

So, in these last couple years I have pretty much crapped it up although in a semi-controlled manner. If I am working totally messy, like with dripping inks and such, I put down a tarp. For some reason I didn't think of it with this large commission.

It was bound to happen. The worst of the worst.

Yesterday I tossed an entire container of Golden fluid acrylics on the carpet. A 4 ounce bottle. Quinacridone Gold of course. The one color I can't live without; the color I use on nearly everything that ventures into my vision; the color I bought up in mass quantity because I was uncertain if Golden's replacement product would be "the same." In fact, when this happened, I was actually more concerned about sacrificing the paint than ruining my carpet.

Then reality hit. And despite the fact I have been trashing the space, I realized that a one foot diameter stain of paint was going to look reallyreally ugly in the middle of the room. Which is when I got to work with carpet cleaning efforts.

During the cleaning process, I became mesmerized with the beauty of this paint I love this stuff so much. There was a point when it had been diluted across the carpet fibers and was totally gorgeous; the carpet looked better than it ever had! I entertained a brief fantasy about just staining the entire surface to see how it would look. Until I slapped myself back to real life (it is A LOT of square footage) and kept scrubbing.

Oxy Clean is some sort of a miracle product. I don't know how or why this stuff works but it does. And 40 minutes + a roll of paper towels later John couldn't even find the spot.