Low Fire Night

We had a studio in our backyard where we were used to work. It had a lot of shelves full of miniatures ready to paint (some were new models that we were experiencing and hadn't tried to sell yet), a cabinet full of painted miniatures waiting to dry, cans of ink, brushes and a desk full of other stuff, like the molds. Outside, but still under the roof, we had a large wooden table where I was used to paint and our oven. We also had some pictures (oil paintings and watercolors) hanging on the walls, a radio and a guitar. There were no computers at that time.

I was used to paint only during the day, with natural light, but we were selling everything each Sunday and we got another weekly fair on Thursdays too, then I had to make a lot of miniatures every week. That is why I was also working during the night. My husband was crazy about organization. He had to organize and clean everything before start working. I wasn't much like that (now I am, but not at that time), then many times we fight over this subject. While I was painting, he was cleaning the studio. Everything had to be perfect before he could start.

My husband was used to sleep early, while I stayed up until late every night just painting. I liked to paint a lot of miniatures at once. I'd get the yellow ink, for example, and painted every yellow detail of all miniatures and so on. This is addictive... You can't stop! So, I was used to paint until the large table was full of miniatures and there was no room for any more miniature. Then, it was bed time for me.

When I get up in the morning, the miniatures were already dried. Then the table could be cleaned and I started all over again. This was my everyday rotine. However, once, when I got up and open my window room, instead of seeing the dried miniatures on the table, I felt a smell of smoke and saw that the whole studio was black!!!

My husband forgot the oven on and the fire distroyed the studio during the night!!! Everything was black! The large wooden table was now trash! All miniatures I had done were distroyed! I don't know how we didn't awake. We got the idea that the fire was low, with no flames and extinguished by itself. Everything turned into coal. I thought we were very lucky because we could have die. Now we had to start over from zero.

We had to get a little helf from our friends.