Welcome to the 284th episode of a view from the easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, artists savor the luxury of the walls and direct a minimal waste studio.
Do you want to participate? Discover our Submission directives And share a bit on your studio with us through us This form! All mediums and workspaces are welcome, including your home studio.
How long have you been working in this space?
Sixty years.
Describe an average day in your studio.
I start at 10 a.m. and go down at 3 p.m. and work on several pieces at a time. I think a lot while I'm in the studio and I'm waiting to get inspired by my ideas. Sometimes I put them on paintings, canvas, photographs or what I consider that the media use. I don't listen to anything, even if I listened to KPFK radio. Now I like silence.
How does space affect your work?
This is my new studio that was built four years ago in place of my old one. Now, I have space to display my work on the wall, a great luxury that I did not use. I am able to look at work longer and make decisions about what to change. Natural and artificial light is so much better than before and are very useful.
How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?
I am involved with artists from Santa Monica, and for many years, I participated in the programming, and I was the founder of the Santa Monica Arts Commission. I was one of the first 24 artists in California asked to teach in schools in the early 1970s in Compton. I was also very involved in the Venice Arts Community. I am always active every day and in my community. I am currently working on recovery, with the help of members of the Santa Monica Arts Commission, an unrealized project started in 1984 called Nes Park, for Natural Elements Sculpture Park. The first commission that we hope to build is a project submitted by Nancy Holt which would be on the beach and would mark various solstices and astronomical events for the next 1,000 years.
What do you like in your studio?
Light! Space! And I need more. The comfort of being at home (it's at home and I don't have to get into my car and go somewhere).
What do you want to be different?
More space!
What is your favorite local museum?
There are so many wonderful musuems, it's difficult to choose, but I really like Lacma and the hammer.
What is your favorite artistic equipment with which to work with?
I worked with many different materials at different times and noticed that I have my choices to my ability to use the materials. I used to do ceramics, heavy and large things; I made paper and paper sculptures, and now I prefer to sit and work, using the wooden plating and the pastel of oil.
How long have you been working in this space?
Eleven months.
Describe an average day in your studio.
My studio is at a 20 -minute bike ride from my home, so if the weather and my health are quite good, I can invigorate. I only have two or three days a week, but one is immediately after therapy. I arrive around 11 a.m., sometimes with a jianbing or a donut and tea. As I sit down, I will get the playlist of recently imported music – Synthwave, Metal, Art Pop. I can go directly to the painting, first stating my palette, currently a conceptual circle of 12 non -toxic pigments of the tubes, with white in the center. I put on an art custody or gloves, then I put a period of time on my camera so that I can take photos of social “process” which in no way resemble those popular but which imply a minimum additional effort on my part.
I can rarely work for more than four hours in a row, but I do a lot during this period. Usually what makes me stop is hunger. I need to be ready to recover my child in nursery school at 4 p.m., whether my spouse seems to be able to do it or not, so I always need to check this around 3:15 p.m. to give me cleaning and journey time.
How does space affect your work?
My studio is in a mixed industrial building, formerly the Wells, managed by the huge real estate company and rockrose problem. I am one of the only individual artists on the first floor, and I have never met the others, although there are more on the two upper floors among printers, recording studios and creative specialists. It is affordable for the quantity of space it offers and the very location, but the drawback is not windows or other ventilation in addition to the front door. It is a limited space with conduits that cross it, next to the manager's office, with two difficult concrete brick walls to put anchors. I have become a little less a portrait and I work much more than a feeling of interiority, invention and memory struggle and generative abstraction. I adapted a way of working in oils with a minimum of potentially dangerous inhaling. I have always had a minimum way of waste to work, using old t-shirts such as rags, glass pallets, building my own canvas from wood and founded or found canvas, to adapt to the frames found.
How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?
There are not a lot of community among building artists, because most creative tenants take care of their own business. My studio of higher education, 18 years ago, was also interior, but his placement was particularly social and open. It was isolated in a way that is undoubtedly unhealthy, but that, as a deeply introverted person, I appreciate as greater independence than I had known before. By considering renewing my lease recently, I tried to move to the building or to others where I would need to share with another artist for reasons of cost, and I could not resolve to navigate this relationship again although it was very good for me before. That said, the LIC district is dense in art studios and in May, Lic Arts Open becomes a center for exhibitions. This seems to be the only real time when network artists are in a network. My studio currently stores all supplies for the queer release march. I am more part of the queer and activist communities than those generally artistic. This particular studio aligns well with my asexual time. There is an inflatable bed, but it is more for emergency sleep than entertaining the Muses.
What do you like in your studio?
I grew up to appreciate its cave qualities, calling it my art hole. It is in an artistic district despite very little community interaction. It is accessible on the first floor, has a capacity on the ground but remains cool in summer and looks like a space carved in the industry for the indulgent aesthetics. This is remarkably cheap for what it is, even if I am sure that I could pay less for a shared space in a less central location.
What do you want to be different?
Air, sunlight, and my four months of security deposit.
What is your favorite local museum?
Moma PS1 is the most local and I generally appreciate their conservation, but my favorite in the city is the Leslie-Lohman art museum. I am a little biased in that they are the only ones that contain my own work. I must shamefully admit that I do not visit New York museums, or as many of them, as often as I should.
