Quiet

Enjoying some quiet moments in the studio before I begin work for the day.

Landscape in Progress

A corner of my studio.

Studio Days

Me walking through the garden.

I sometimes feel odd when I write about my studio, and I believe this stems from the fact that the studio is hardly the only place I work. The couch, dinner table, floor, and lawn are not out of bounds for me. The studio is usually reserved for unwieldy large pieces which cannot be moved or are in oil.

Seeing other artist's studios which are depicted as a large room or a single desk hold both great interest and confusion for me because it is simply not the only place where they work. Strangely enough the first place I think to photograph when asked to depict my studio is the garden or a small corner that holds particular interest for me at the moment. At most the work in progress is the way I depict my work space and then it seems almost alien to my eyes. Perhaps because it is the last step in the process and gives the illusion that I simply plopped down and looked at a list of what there was to paint that day. Rather than being surrounded by beauty and being inspired by it.

A few tulips in a corner of our living room.

I wish we could see the usual walks that artists took during a lull or the garden they sat in. It is lovely to see a room in which the artist works but it also plays to a mechanical notion of art and a factory like efficiency that I think are just not there ( at least not in me).

In the Studio: On my windowsill

Cross sections from this years Christmas tree, small clay bird from pottery barn, and of course my favorite acrylic ink.

The art of keeping small objects is well practiced in my house. I think everyone has them to some extent, those things that serve no "practical purpose" but are used to inspire and motivate or just to please. As much as I love these little objects (and alas for my husband the not so little ones, I think the "very useful door" is the stuff of legends ) they do seem to multiply at a frightening pace. I try to incorporate them in the rest of the house, you know spread them out so as to hide their true numbers. They do, however, work wonders for sitting down and thinking about my next project.

So what's on your windowsill?