Every kitchen needs just a little bit of character.  The last 3 years my kitchen as slowly turned into my artistic studio.  My actual artist studio got packaged up and my creative career went down a new path. When some christmas lights went up in my last kitchen and then inspirational clippings started appearing on the walls I realized my kitchen was no longer just a kitchen it was a my new studio.

My Louisiana kitchen has morphed and changed these last 2 years.  Starting off mimicking my kitchen in the Ozarks to make a little bit of home in a new environment. Then a drastic simplification, and then each appliance slowly crapping out in the last 6 months.

2 weeks ago my landlord showed up with a brand new fridge for me.  The clean white surface was my blank canvas and thus began the placement of the magnets.  Now the collection of magnets started years ago.  My inspiration came from my aunt’s fridge. Since my birth her fridge has been a masterpiece of magnets, newspaper clippings, old photos.  It was and still is a fascinating living timeline of our family.  When I began my magnet collection I made the conscious decision only to have magnets on the fridge.  My favorite magnets to collect are museum magnets with my favorite pieces of art from that museum.  Not shocking since the magnets collected, has been friends that bring me back magnets from their own journeys…Cape Cod, Spain, Asheville, Seattle and on.

Sometimes I think maybe I’d want one of those clean crisp modern looking kitchens, but then I imagine my fridge without its magnets or the aprons not on the wall and I have that overwhelming feeling that the kitchen would feel lonely without all my creative inspiration, it would feel neglected no longer the creative nexus of my home.  It maybe a little cluttered, maybe a little crazy but its mine and me, my family and my friends wouldn’t have my kitchen any other way.