Studio Life Part 1

As luck would have it, in my thirty-plus years of being an artist, acting as an artist liaison for the fine art publisher, The Greenwich Workshop, as a gallery owner, and doing the many stories I’ve done on artists for Live An Artful Life and my newspaper column - The Artist’s Perspective, I have had the great pleasure to have visited hundreds of artist’s studio across the country and even some in Europe.

Each different and special in their own way, each with an artist doing their own thing, and each the launching pad for unbelievable amounts of creativity. Honestly, it has been one of my great pleasures. To peek behind Mr. Wizard’s curtain (referencing The Wizard of Oz) and see how the magic happens is not a place all of us get to go, so I can share, I’ve never taken the privilege lightly.

Here's one of my first studio spaces in a spare bedroom in Connecticut.

I have seen some pretty grand studio spaces in this time, but I’ve also seen tiny dedicated spaces carved out of small homes, but where the artistic heart still beats gloriously big! I’ve been to studios fostering grand amounts of collaboration, where immersion into one another is like making a soup with flavorful ingredients all blending into one but each is allowed to shine. I’ve visited studios where meager livings are eked out, and I’ve been in studios where single pieces of art surpass a hundred thousand dollars.

Each studio is as unique and functional as the artists who put themselves to work in it. In many cases, these studios are not simply the room where one kind of art or even craft is made. There are many studios, and their artists, who create with several types of mediums or styles and thus, these spaces have to have multiple work areas to allow for the creation of more than one thing and the storage of all of them.

My studio space in Virginia had all of my art supplies easily accessible.

The most important thing I think a studio must offer its artist is the ability to be completely spontaneous. The studio must be a place that not only fosters creativity but when an artist gets an idea, they can run there and begin creating immediately. The energy for a great idea can get crushed in an instant when the artist’s studio is not in the ready for inspired thought. It has to not only offer the space and the fuel to launch a rocket, but the parts to build the rocket as well.

Studios can be very serious and organized places in their ability to get the job done of allowing an artist to reach for something an artist has not reached for, or to discover a new place within themselves. Some artists, the working ones, often understand how important studio space really is. They get that the studio is often a teammate in the creation of art and so they make sure they do their part to help their studio do its part in making art or creative projects fun.

My studio could also double as a gallery for clients.

Trying to count back through my studio spaces since my career began, I count to now six including my, or what I should say, “our” latest one. These studio spaces have been corners, spare bedrooms, in a basement, purpose-built and now a bonus room over our garage. But for the first time, Linda, 100% joins and shares this space. While she wasn’t doing art per se when we first met, Linda was always creative and has become quite an artist since my art career began. The studio we have today we share and it is a blast to do so because we keep each other company and collaborate in our creative feelings if nothing else.

The new studio, part 2, next week! Until then….

Live an artful life,
Tom

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