I may have mentioned here before that I am a recovering hoarder. I mean that seriously, in that I have had a severe hoarding issue that I attempted to cure cold turkey when I moved to my current apartment. Basically, I got rid of 80% or more of what I owned and was brutally ruthless about it. Left things that I regret not keeping, but overall I'm glad that I did it.
I still do have twinges though. But that's not the point of this blog.
The great, wonderful, magnificent mixed media guru Seth Apter dared the readers of his blog, The Altered Page to show off their workspaces as they REALLY look. In other words, messy, cluttered, humming with projects being done. Here's his blog post today that shares his studio and links to others.
I have taken up the dare.
Readers of this blog will recall that I have written about my attempts at organizing my working areas previously (here and here, and here too). Often I do the organizing in an attempt to clear out mental cobwebs, and because quite frankly I can't work when things are way too chaotic.
I think most artists experience this problem full on. I don't know too many people who are able to have art-dedicated workspaces, so most of us have to cobble together something that sort of works, some of the time. Since I live in a very small space, my whole apartment is my studio. I just happen to live and sleep here. (which becomes an issue too, when I want to work with things that may cause fumes - I don't really have an area where I can do this without bearing the consequences or causing difficulties)
But enough excuses.
I want to show you how messy my space has been - except for one area which is sort of neat, since I haven't used it in a while. This is the painting area, in my bedroom. Relatively neat since I haven't been painting much recently.
This, however, is an ever-present aggravation, the entrance to my bedroom, which has 2 tubs of collages on canvas because I have nowhere else to store them. And of course, the tubs present a spot where I can put more stuff that I need access to.
Then you have the really cluttered area - my parlor, basically, and my kitchen table. This is where the bulk of my work is created.
My kitchen table tends to be the main greeting card/production area. Sometimes it's where I eat meals. If there's space.
I do move things around all the time, and the amount of stuff on the table depends on what I'm doing. Right now the emphasis is on cards, so I have all my containers with card supplies on the table.
People move in and out of my building all the time, and occasionally they leave stuff behind that's useful. Like this suitcase rack (I know you can't see it but it's the kind you used to see in hotel rooms - do they still have them?) that I found in the hall of my floor 2 weeks ago. I immediately found a use for it as you can see. (Last week I found a small set of shelves that I don't know yet what to do with but I'll find a use, you know I will).
Next to the kitchen table are shelf units that are vital (I get them at Target). They hold the things I'm not working on. I also have taller units in my bedroom that hold supplies.
Then there's the place where I work on collages on canvas, which is incredibly cramped being in the parlor corner and so things get piled on the table when it's not in use and I have to take things off the table when I need to use it.
My computer area, if you want to call it that, is the recliner in the other corner and also my couch. I'll use the laptop on a TV table, unless Junior decides to sit on it as he's doing in the photo.
And, finally, here's the long view, looking towards the windows (of course Junior's still literally on the computer).
To use an overused cliche but it fits - it is what it is. But you know what? It's fine. I've worked in cramped spaces all my working artist life and I'm used to it. I'm not sure what I'd do if I had a huge amount of space.
Actually I do. I'd fill it up with more art stuff.
Visit Seth's blog today to see links to other working spaces. I know I'm not the only one out there.
later,
lin
No one can accuse me of not having ideas.
It's executing them that's the problem.
If you saw my living room right now, you would rightly think I am indeed a hoarder because stuff is everywhere, really, and there's not a lot of organization.
Well, there is of a sort. I know where things are and what they're there for, but it's not as orderly as I'd like it to be.
My problem is really that if something is not in view I forget about it. So if I have any hope of actually completing something I've started or that I'm thinking about, it has to be visible or close at hand. Which can lead (not can--DOES) to clutter. I spend time each day trying to rearrange things so that it's at least a little bit neat, but I don't usually succeed.
Getting back to ideas, I've been thinking a lot about walls. The walls we hide behind. The walls that keep out the sunshine. The walls that imprison us.
So my problem has been how to create that effect. Recently I thought about window mesh, as in screens. I thought, though, that the mesh would be too hard to see through - at least regular window screen, and I was thinking about something else. Last Friday, I traipsed over to Home Depot and with the help of a kind associate, found a bunch of screen wire mesh that might work.
The one I saw that I liked best is this one
It's 1/4 inch and I think that would be just perfect except for my having to buy a whole roll. Which isn't that expensive really - I think this one was $6.67 for the roll. It's just that I didn't want a whole roll. And I'd have to get snips to cut pieces out of it which would add to the price. My regular wire cutters would work but it'd take forever to cut pieces out of it.
On the other hand, I've been daydreaming about doing a wire sculpture that I'd collage over.
Then there's the possibility of brick or stone. After leaving behind the mesh, I wandered over to the paint department where I browsed among the paint cards and picked out a bunch that might work. Heck, I could even punch brick shapes out of the cards. So I took a bunch in the colors I wanted.
I also was looking for shades of a particular ivory white I wanted to mix for yet another idea. Found a bunch of those too.
One thing I really hadn't realized until I was waiting for a bus back to my home town is that brick walls are not all one color. When I was conceptualizing a brick wall as part of this wall idea, I was actually thinking that they were.
However, I observed several walls and discovered that depending on the age of the building, bricks can be a variety of shades, and even colors. And that bricks don't have to be red. And they can be painted over
Some examples I discovered (it may be hard to see the brick detail on buildings)
This building is relatively new in Providence. It houses condos and an elegant coffee ship. When I was looking at this building on Friday, I noticed that not only did it have bricks in the traditional color, but there were also black bricks in a pattern
I found this rather dilapidated wall on a street in my home town. It is what I think a lot of people think of when they think of a brick wall. Old, neglected, rather dirty. I was particularly interested in the color of the grout in between the bricks.
Then there are gray bricks. Until I really looked at this wall in front of the First Baptist Church in Providence, I thought it was stone. Perhaps it is, but the stone has been carved into brick shapes.
This wall is also in my town, and the bricks have been painted an odd red shade. The bricks also don't look like the usual bricks I see.
Then there are bricks that aren't really red, like the above at my apartment building. I almost always think of bricks as a shade of red (after all, there's a color called brick red).
Are you bored yet?
I do a lot of tinkering around with ideas, sometimes so much so that I become paralyzed with all the possibilities. Which is a kind of wall in itself, I suppose.
I do hope that I am able to get past the thinking and actually do this. At this point I'm thinking I can do several versions, wire and paper. And also there's also stone. Maybe I can actually build a stone wall - small of course.
But that's another project.
later,
lin
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