Seriously, just how badly do I want to learn to paint? I’m always making little promises to myself that I’ll find more time to be creative. I have bins in my spare room closet filled with paints, glue, mosaic tiles and blank canvases. And that’s not even counting the baskets I have filled with yarn — the year I quit smoking cigarettes everyone I knew got a sadly misshapen scarf for Christmas. It definitely wasn’t a good year for my friends and family, but just think what a bad year it was for me.
I’ve always considered myself a creative type, but daily life just gets in the way of all the projects that I’d like to be able to do. I figured that this quarantine would give me ample opportunity to get back in touch with my creative side, but sadly I haven’t even done that silly puzzle that I dragged out of the closet months ago. (My husband has set up his “office” on our dining room table, there is just no other surface big enough for a puzzle, don’t judge me!)
So here’s my new dilemma — one of those local paint and sip studios is offering a new membership option. You know — it’s a studio where you can go with your girlfriends, drink wine and paint the same picture with the help of the class instructor. They teach you basic painting techniques, everyone follows along and it’s cool that everyone’s painting comes out just a little but differently. I’ve done a few of these type classes at our local Irish pub and it’s always a good time. But obviously, these places are not open during our current stay-at-home situation.
Now this paint studio has been offering online classes through my old friend Zoom — I signed up for one back in May and it was fun. A little weird doing it by myself, but I learned some new things and I was pretty proud of my painting. It was a lighthouse and I thought I got the water on the shore to actually look like it had waves. My husband thought it was ugly, of course, but what does he know??
This studio is now offering a membership. They have been advertising it for weeks and I signed up to be on a waitlist for the opportunity to then decide if I wanted to be an inaugural member. They listed all the benefits of membership — discounts to virtual classes, access to a library of classes that teach technique, special members only classes, a forum to ask questions, access to a creative community to get you to start painting etc. But they never discussed the cost.
Until today.
So this new membership is $20 a month or you can sign for the whole year for a discounted rate of $200. Now when I did the virtual class in May I ended up spending $79 — $29 for the virtual class and then I had them ship the painting supplies to my home. I got a canvas, a tabletop easel, paint brushes, paint and some other items. That was for one class.
Now if I do a class every month, this would so be worth it. And they are talking about having multiple classes per month. But that means I actually have to DO the classes, not just see that they were posted and ignore them. If I pay the money, will it make me participate? Or will I just view it as another “chore”? It’s not that much money but if I never do a class?! It would be like having a gym membership that I didn’t use — been there! So what do I do??
Notes from a Self Quarantine 