Shared Art Studio

Earlier this year, I had been working toward fixing up an art studio at my house. You can see in these past Home Art Studio Project posts I was going to make the space in the backyard, up against the cottage wall. Long story short, I ran into some issues with uneven floor and a falling apart fence, so all summer I worked in a corner in the house and in the backyard. 

Then fall arrived and I felt ongoing anxiety about turning a corner of the living room into a workspace and never dealing with this room. It had been an office for my boyfriend, then what felt like a storage room/work space for for me (see photos below) and now I love that it is a place we can both work in. I was insistent that I don't want to take it over as my own since he shoots photos and draws too. 

Just looking at this wall makes me shudder. What a disaster it became. It's pretty embarrassing to share this, but this is the state it turned into at the end of the summer. Because the room gets pretty warm in the summer, I basically didn't work in here and it was like a neglected storage room. 

This isn't a great photo, but you can see how dark the sandy brown walls made it look. The piles, oh the piles. 

The aftermath of painting. My speckled phone and encrusted hands. 

I think I was getting a little crazed by this point. 

Art studio at the Linea de Costa art residency

So first off, I'll show you my inspiration for the room. And yes, I understand that this is the prettiest picture in this whole post. Last November, while on a residency in Spain, I had the world's most beautiful art studio. It had an ocean view, was pristinely white, plants everywhere and hints of blues. While my results weren't exactly the same, I knew that I wanted to paint the new workspace white, to be a lot less cluttered and have plants. 

And here it is. The new studio has bright white walls, empty surfaces to work on and one hanging plant (planter by RossLab). Now, you might want to compare this with the first picture. BIG DIFFERENCE, huh? By the next post, I'll have worked in here for a bit and will give more details on what was done. Thanks so much to Bryan for the help in making it look like this. 

For now, I am ready to be productive in this clean, bright new shared space. 

Inside Out

It has taken me forever to get around to cleaning up the rest of the backyard and improving it. At last, this weekend, we moved some things around and did a little cleaning. I really need to get all this done so we can enjoy the yard for summer and fall. The outside is starting to feel like inside with shelving and seating. 

We mainly worked on the patio and I found it looking better already. The fence wall below formerly had a bunch of junk and the trash cans against it. It may not be too exciting, but I love the way it is looking.

I think the fern blends right in with my painting, don't you? The trunk on the left is filled with blankets and extra lights for when we entertain. The small shelves mounted above it have various natural things like rocks, shells and a succulent.

The green shelf is not quite complete yet, but looks pretty good for now. The shelf on the right has rocks and things from various hikes displayed on it. 

We finally decided where the fire pit would go. The "seat" you see hear is actually my friend Chris Patton's first reclaimed wood table. He made us a new one so this one is now outside. Last year we were in the North Bay and a coffee shop had these giant coffee bags for something like $2 each. We put pillows inside and voila! Outdoor seating. The elephant hanging you see in the foreground was something I found in a Capitola gift shop a few weeks ago for $14. I liked the combination of mirrored shapes and the tin elephants. Elephants are good luck too.

The cats seem pretty happy with the space...or maybe they don't really care.

We are still planning on doing a lot more California Native landscaping and getting rid of a lot of the lawn. One thing at a time. If you look closely, you can see the first little aloe plant we planted directly in the lawn. I think this may be how we'll phase out the lawn. Just get a plant, dig out the lawn, repeat. I've never really done things the normal way anyway. 

From the 100 Day Project

I'd like the house to look a little more like this. I just have to be patient.

On the to do list:

• New hammock
• Tented reading nook
• California Native drought resistant landscaping in the front and much of the back
• More cacti

What Goes On

This is the first of a new weekly series on the blog. Here, you'll find a summary of what I've been doing, reading, listening to, maybe even a recipe and other odds and ends. Sort of a wrap up of the week. We'll see how this goes!

Here's what I've been...

Working On

I was thrilled to get back to the Home Art Studio Project this week. As I am scheming on new work, setting up some commissions and between events, it felt like the perfect time to get back to it. Clearing the cobwebs and organizing my supplies was blissful. I really love this view from the space that looks out at this weathered wall. 

This week I am working on some art projects while also trying to get the studio going and the tidying done. I'm behind on the garden, behind on setting up the workspace and behind on purging the office of meaningless things. I hope to tackle this stuff and feel like I made some progress. 

I'm trudging along on the 100 Day Project. I'm looking forward to today's art, which is my recommitment at working on this project daily until it is done. I have sold a lot of the art from days 1-20 of my 100 Day Project and thanks to all who purchased one!

Buying

I just found a new art supplier, Trekell & Company. Their panels, brushes and more are made in the USA, something always good in my book. I haven't placed my order yet, but I am looking forward to trying out their products. 

I just bought this gorgeous galaxy painting from Elissa Sue for my dad for Father's Day. I know he'll love this celestial painting since he loves astronomy and dreams. 

I just ordered a jar of Todos Organic's botanically infused coconut oil. The vanilla and whole rose one just arrived today and I just love it.

Cooking

This week, we made tacos with butter lettuce as the shell. This recipe inspired us, but we didn't follow it. Instead, we used shredded chicken, mushrooms, raw carrots, salsa and guacamole. They were actually really good!

Watching

If you want to see a different form of art, watch the Chef's Table, an original Netflix foodie series. Chef stories told in the most compelling and cinematic way. 

The The Daily Show and The Nightly Show reactions to the shooting tragedy in South Carolina.

Finally saw Surfwise, a documentary of an eclectic surfing family. I can't believe this movie is from 2007. I guess I have been wanting to see it for years now. It's a really good look at living differently, a subject I am always interested in. 

Reading

How to help the bee population according to Sunset Magazine.

Listening To

I heard Mike Maxwell interview Porous Walker. Porous is super funny and I love his insights on having young people around along with his humorous approach to art.

This Week's Progress on the Home Studio

Last week, I did a Rooftop Cleanup to allow more light and clean the roof of the new studio space. The corrugated plastic has multiple cracks in it, so it will have to be replaced. I did the math and it looks to cost $159 + tax. This week I have worked on cleaning up the area below it. It's amazing how huge the space looks now that all that junk is gone. I really have no idea what I'm doing, but it's really fun to just clean everything up and dream about what I could do.

New problems

When I headed out back today, I noticed two fence panels had toppled back onto the neighbor's land. I think the new fence needs to come sooner than later!

This is the SECOND pile of stuff that had to go.

Everything in the back was water damaged, rusty or just nasty. Except for the cooler, everything is going. There were even two fenders back there from a prior tenant. See those bags of cement? They actually became cement from the rain earlier this month. Lots of rusty nails, rusty screws, PVC pipe, rusty tools, rusty razor blades, gross tape and other weirdness. Good riddance to this stuff!

In cleaning out the back, it made me realize I wanted to trim down my other belongings as well. I have decent-sized collections of records, books and art supplies. This all adds up. Not to mention a couple boxes of childhood toys and mementos. I also had a lot of clothes. 

Look at all those empty hangers!

I have been reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo. Her approach is to touch everything you own, rather than just look at it when sorting. She thinks you should focus on what you want to keep, not on what you are getting rid of. Marie's method is different from a lot of approaches because rather than room by room or in small bits, she wants you to go through EVERYTHING  and by category, pulling every item within each category. You start with clothes, then books, papers, komono (miscellany - CDs, DVDs, electrical cords, kitchen goods, and on and on) then you move on to sentimental items last. By focusing on clothes first (she calls these the least sentimental), it makes it easier to move through each category. I am not that great at following things exactly, but so far, I have gone through clothes and books and it feels really great. 

So clean now! 

Anyway, back to the space. Look at it now! So much cleaner than when I started! You can see before photos in the Art Studio Move post. I think I can clear out my studio in two more trips (mostly because of the furniture and large art). I have been thinking about the design of the studio. I want it to be a lean to. I would like the corrugated roof to stay to allow a lot of light in. I also want walls on three sides and a door on one side to enter. This project is going to take some time. I don't expect to be done with it until at least summer.  For the time being, I am going to work on the table on the back patio and use the office inside for shipping, photo scanning and editing. The space in back will be for supplies and I can work back there, but I will have to bring art projects on paper inside each day since the overnight moisture in the air will cause the paper to buckle. 

I am so into getting rid of all this stuff. I know it will allow me to focus way more on things I want to be doing without all this junk to think about in the back of my mind. 

Next steps: 

• Move my art desk, shelf, chairs and large artworks back from the studio (still need to sort through)
• Organize art supplies on shelf
• Hang pegboard for tools
• Purchase a flat file
• Talk to the neighbors about their invasive trees and vines (that are ruining the fence)
• Level the foundation (there's a giant root under one of the concrete panels)
• Replace the corrugated roof

Rooftop Cleanup

Ok, so this is probably not the most exciting post, but I wanted to show you how hard I worked yesterday afternoon. My main mission was to clean the corrugated plastic roof in the back and sweep the roof of our tenant's building. I wanted to clean the corrugated roof so I could let it as much light as possible for the work area. It was covered with dirt, leaves and branches.

Before I climbed up on the roof, I caught a Georgia O'Keeffe-like image with the ladder, blue sky and adobe feel.  It reminded me of New Mexico.

A two broom job.

See that blackness beyond the brooms on the corrugated roof? That's the caked up dirt and branches I needed to clean. I wish I took a proper before picture, but the whole thing was covered. I must say, sweeping is one of my favorite activities. It is so satisfying and meditative. I listed to Jessica Pratt as I swept my heart out. 

When I climbed up, it was during the late afternoon, the golden hour and then sunset. It was so nice to watch the afternoon turn to evening from here. I want to come back up and sketch sometime.

My little shadow sweeping.

You can see the progress I was making here. I pushed all the debris to the edge of the roof and then used a hose to deeper clean. 

The north view. 

I love that there's still an empty lot behind us. I like seeing the piles of wood, old truck and weeds. I pretend I live in the country sometimes. Here, you can see how clean I got the corrugated roof. Sure, it's not pristine, but as clean as I could get it with the hose. I may hop back up for one more pass. I like how the corrugated texture mirrors the awesome textured garage wall next door. 

You can see how bright the roof is now!

There's a lot more light now. A few areas of the corrugated plastic need mending since they leak, but it's not in bad shape. All that stuff on the shelves still needs to be gone through. Let me tell you, I have seen some black widows and boxes full of tetanus nails. Thankfully, no animal carcasses so far. It felt like such good progress today. I can't tell you how big this space looks now! It's amazing how claustrophobic rotten piles of wood, leaves and junk can make a space. 

I feel like we should build a little balcony up here so we can watch the sunset. 

The next steps will be to:

• Further clean the side of the house and cut back an awful, thorny vine that's been sneaking in from the neighbor's yard.
• Clean up the built-in work bench (throw out rusty nails, old cans of paint, rotten wood)
• Sweep or hose down underneath the roof and workbench to start with a really clean work area

You can read my first post in this series, Art Studio Move, for a more complete list of what I plan on doing. I will be putting all posts related to this in the Home Art Studio Project category if you want to follow along. 

I won't post any pictures until I get the above list done, but here are some sketches of what I think it will look like when I'm done cleaning.