Studio Changes

A few weeks ago, I got a call from Molly telling me that Jackie had informed her of a plan to move out of our Studio.  I've known Jackie for many years, first from a gallery and studio space she had on Cookman Avenue in Asbury, where she had exhibitions of her own works and other people.  A few years ago that place closed, I don't know if it was her decision or she was pushed to do it.  At some point she started working in a store in Ocean Grove (I think while she still had her space, too) and Molly had produced product to sell there for years, silk screened t-shirts and stuff.  I was told that Jackie was working on art out of her garage, but that was awfully cold in winter, so Molly offered to split our rent with her and invited her to join us.  A blog entry from that time can be seen here.

Molly always claimed she never gave her permission to take up as much space as she did, but three years later, she was still around.  My friend Jenny even met her in her store up the street, and believes she bought one of Molly's shirts there.  But I was told that job ended.  Jackie was able to find a replacement job, and this place is even giving her a nice work space, so she's relocating to there.  She started packing up her stuff (she had a lot of things in her corner) last week, but today it's mostly gone.

A few things are left (that brown wooden desk wasn't part of our space), but I'm guessing she'll come get them soon.  What happens next is yet to be decided.  Molly asked me if I wanted to seek a new third person to split the rent, or to just go back to being the two of us.  There are advantages to both options, so I told her I was okay with either, just wanting approval of anyone coming in, and advising that she establish up front the space, since she still claims she never wanted to let Jackie have all that space (but as lease holder, she had the power to stop her, but didn't).  In our last conversation, Molly was leaning toward just keeping it the two of us, as it was for several years.

What I fear is that her plan is to just start using the vacated corner as her workspace so she'll never have to clean up her corner, which looks like this today-

I guess we'll see what happens in the future.