Studio envy
In 2019, moving from our house of thirty years, I decided to move my studio home. Perusing fellow artists’ studios, I experienced some serious studio envy. I made a list of musts and wants. I had visions of a property with a separate two car garage or perhaps building a separate studio structure in the backyard. I fantasized about an expansive transom or skylight-lit space filled with storage and workstations. My husband was still commuting to downtown NYC so staying within walking distance of the train station, not too long of a commute and within the locus of all my familiar haunts (did I mention I’m on a texting basis with the owners of local bakeries?) in addition to financial constraints meant compromise.
A terraced narrow property, the house we decided on had no room for a separate structure. It had a partially beneath ground two-car tandem attached garage with a utility room cutting into it and gobbling up eighty square feet. Long and narrow, dank and dark, it was the furthest thing from bright, expansive or inviting. It was difficult to let go of my studio dreams and stop focusing on what it wasn’t.
Building my haven
Little by little I worked away at it: poured resin floor, complete waterproofing, an additional window cut into the concrete, installation of a bifold and single entry door allowing easy access and the ability to be fully opened in warm weather, LED ceiling lights, walls and worktables built, storage units put together and configured, a Mitsubishi ac/heat unit, an industrial exhaust unit for encaustic, and a coat of white paint everywhere. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to move in and get started. It was completed one week before the pandemic stay-at-home orders were issued in New York State.
Suddenly I was able to wander into the studio anytime, tea in hand, to look at and ponder works in progress. I pulled my first two all-nighters ever stitching together the cocoons for Emergence. The utility room became an unexpected plus with access to a double deep sink, and the ability to use it as a dark room for my Cyanotypes. I made a pop-up papermaking studio on the driveway. I can drill and burn wood on the macadam safe within stone side walls. I can back the car up the driveway to load and unload work easily. It has provided flexibility, access, and a haven for my art making. I had my first studio visit a few months ago and was incredibly gratified to hear the curator exclaim what a great studio it was.
In the Making
From my dining room table with the press tucked into a corner of the basement, to an outside studio with tall ceilings and expansive light, to a smaller dedicated space within my home that has allowed me the flexibility to work at any hour and use the space to accommodate many processes that the outside studio did not, the work gets made. I do need and cherish a physical space in which to work, yet I am finding that it is less about the “perfect” studio space and more about a functional space that is also only one part of the creative puzzle. Letting go of studio envy, asking what the work demands and then figuring out how I can achieve my goals in alternative ways with other resources (residencies, workshops, printmaking studio rental). It is a more complicated view, but also a more exciting one, filled with possibility.
“Making is as much a mindset, a decision, a dedication to thinking about and creating work whenever and in whatever way I can.”
What I have discovered is this: making is as much a mindset, a decision, a dedication to thinking about and creating work whenever and in whatever way I can. My studio is anywhere I am. With me on a plane as I stitch, in a pop-up tent on the driveway, in a vacation home on a table, in my walks as I collect bits and pieces to incorporate into my work, in a workshop or residency. Letting go of the belief that the studio is the sole space in which to make work has opened different ways of both imagining and executing more ambitious work. I still experience studio envy occasionally, but it is fleeting and quickly fades when I am knee deep in making.
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