Redress: New Studio Check in Part 2

It’s been a month or so since I moved out of my home studio and into the office space. I decided to leave a workspace for myself at home so I could work on my painting and drawing there. Mainly my more messy crafts–dyeing, basket weaving, painting, paper making, collage, etc.–are all done at home where I have running water and big windows.

The four main fixtures of my workspace are my drafting table, easel, cabinet, and peg board.

My pegboard is part utilitarian and part inspiration.

That little notebook is was my grandma’s project journal, I love having it where I can see it. The tapestry is a piece I did for my weaving class at NIU. It was based off of motifs from the eastern european (west pakistan) weaving tradition.

This is a segment of a larger piece I made. It’s all paper filigree made from junk mail. I’m totally going to make a whole installation using this as my “gauge swatch” in a year or so. I’m collecting the junk mail for it right now.

Here are two works I’m currently playing with.

My little knitting basket tucked under the desk. It’s always good for taking a break.

I’m really excited about this. I just moved a huge binder of resource photos and drawings (done on loose paper) into this portfolio. It really helps to be able to just flip through it.

And that accessibility has lead to some fun new work. Like this little wip painting. I did the sketch it’s based on in the fall of ’07. It’s fun to have all these old drawings to draw on for new, larger work.

And this guy I started last summer and I finally decided how I’m going to finish it up. Sometimes things just need to ferment for a bit. I’ve decided to do freeform crochet across the entire surface of the painting, which will hold the two panels together. I had stopped after finishing the stitching around the steer and doing one row of single crochet. I’m now on my 4th row. It will take awhile, but I think it will be worth it. I’m going to do a few other smaller pieces like this to group all together.

So the conclusion? I’m totally loving my at home studio just as much as my out-of-the-home studio/office. In fact, I think it’s more complete than the out-of-the-home office.

I’m ramping up for a few shows, so I’m spending one day a week at home to work on an ongoing series. You can read more about it on Kro Studio. I just posted about the steps I’m taking to get shown more, get into some juried shows, get a few solo gigs, and then end with a residency.