Ahhhhh! Finally! A clean and organized studio. Phase 1 is complete.

My studio is a very small space in the basement of my 92-year-old house. I turned about 340° to take this panorama. I didn’t really need all the bones, wasps nests and interesting seed pods I’d collected over the years that were havens for cobwebs. (I saved some!) They took up a lot of space that I needed for materials, like old rusting pipes that I’ll someday use to make objects.

Part of the space juts out from the foundation, has a corrugated plexi roof, and served as a greenhouse by a previous owner. I get a ton of natural light. But it’s really cold at night and very hot in the day. I sewed a shade to help moderate the temperature extremes and diffuse the direct light, but it doesn’t help as much as needed for the place to be comfortable. The roof has started leaking, so this summer I plan to replace the roof, insulate it, and put in an energy-efficient skylight. (Fred will do most of the work – I’ll help and do the finishing.) Thanks to the fellowship I received from the Wyoming Arts Council, my studio will be a more comfortable place to make art.

Cleaning out not only made for a more functional studio, but finding old work caused me to reflect on my creative journey and confirm that my current work wasn’t an abrupt change in direction. I came across a couple of paintings  and mixed media pieces from 20+ years ago that incorporated objects into a landscape in which they didn’t belong. This is a road I’ve been on for much of my life.

The studio was clean just long enough for me to take this photo – there’s a new mess.