Lisa Thorpe

The Big Shuffle…and Where Have I Been All These Months?

Hello faithful blog followers it has been awhile since my last confession! I know it seems that I dropped off the face of the earth but here I am and in new digs! I moved, and when I say I moved I really moved every object of my family self and artist self. But let’s back up a minute. First for those of you worried that I have left The Bishop’s Ranch, have no fear I am still here but everything old is new again.

The house my family and I have lived in at The Bishop’s Ranch for 21 years is right in the middle of the retreat center – and when I say center it truly is between the two main gathering places here – the chapel and the dining hall. Over the years as the size and frequency of groups here increased it became less and less private and harder to find refuge and respite in our own home. So a change was proposed. Kip Cottage, a lodge at the bottom of the hill on the edge of the grounds, was underutilized but needed a lot of love and work. The Casita, our house, was to much in the fray so a proposal was made for us to move to Kip and for the Casita to become the new bigger, brighter, art Center! This is a big win-win for me, I get a more private quiet home and a bigger, better studio and art center to create art and teach classes.

So that is the Big Shuffle part of the title and what about the Where Have I been part you say? Well starting in February we began the tear out at Kip Cottage – carpet, old tiles, old fixtures, kitchen counters… you get the idea. Then came the build up refinishing kitchen cabinets, new windows, painting, flooring, book shelf building and on and on. My husband and I did as much of the work as we could to save the Ranch money and get the place just how we wanted it. After 4 months we moved into our new home. I am super proud of how it came out and love being down here out of the flow.

Moving one thing meant moving another so last week I moved my studio into my old house – now dubbed the Casita Creative Art Center! My old bedroom is now my studio and the living-room is the classroom space. Since I moved in I’ve lead 3 workshops in the new space including these happy faces from my 5-month offering, Mixed Media Monthly- Thanks ladies for kicking off a new identity for the Casita!

I am recommitting myself to the blog and you dear readers – so I promise to check in soon!