Welcome to my Studio

I have spent the past week cleaning my studio. I still have a few hours of work to do but there are parts I can show you now that you've never seen before.

My studio is in the loft of our house. When we had our house built thirteen years ago, it was important to me that there be a space dedicated to my painting. In other houses and apartments I've lived in, I created painting spaces in nooks and crannies but this time I wanted a defined studio space. At the time we moved in though, Chloé was a newborn and Emma was four. I underestimated the time and energy that motherhood would require. Although I ventured upstairs to paint from time to time, there were long periods when my art light gathered cobwebs and my confidence as an artist waned from neglect. I definitely felt guilty that this beautiful space in our house was not being used properly but I knew that the day would come when it would.

The past two years as I've returned to painting on a full-time basis, I was so intent on devoting my energy to creating that I let the clutter sit and multiply around me. I am most definitely a perfectionist. I prefer order but, somehow, I am able to ignore clutter when I want to do other things. Housework doesn't rank very high of my list of loves. But does it ever feel good to be restoring order to my studio space now!

This is a sitting space in the corner of my studio. I dreamt of sneaking up here at night and reading novels when the girls were tucked in. But that rarely happened.  Meeko tested out the sofa this morning. Two weeks ago, you could barely see the sofa let alone sit on it. There were boxes of frames and mats in front of it and it was covered with piles of artwork and paper.

This is my storage cupboard. I made sure that it was built big enough to hold my 22" x 30" sheets of watercolour paper. I constructed the built-in shelves myself.  The watercolour sheets are stored flat just underneath the triangular space at the top. I have enough sheets and pads of paper to last me a long while but still have trouble entering an art store and not buying some sort of new paper to try.

This is my collection of art books as well as art and home decorating magazines. I've put a lot of magazines in the recycling bin in the past week and don't subscribe to as many anymore. I find it hard to keep up with them. I still am holding on to my Mary Engelbreit magazines, though, as they are not published anymore. I used to love the artist profiles they did.

I'll show you some other perspectives of the space in the days ahead. I have a bit more cleaning and then I have a commissioned painting to start on. It is so cold this week! I saw snowflakes in the air when I was walking Meeko today. A cozy, warm studio space seems like the perfect place to be.