New Year, New Studio!
I have been loosely looking for the perfect studio space for over a year while continuing to push the limits of my tiny home studio. My perfect space would be a short commute away, a room of my own but near other artists, at least 20 square meters, not a basement-like windowless hovel, and affordable. As far as I can tell, that does not exist in Barcelona.
Luckily, this past fall I was able to “pull a Devani.” When my sister-in-law, Devani, had her first baby, she developed a great strategy for finding her way through the maze of baby-gear information. If she needed a car seat, for example, she would go to the baby store, stand near the car seats and wait for another customer with a mission-like gleam in their eye to appear. “What do you think about the car seats?” Devani would casually ask. Invariably, the other person would launch into a summary of the extensive research they’d done on car seats and why they’d settled on the one they were about to buy. As they left, Devani simply picked up the same model.
So when my friend Elina told me that she’d spent the better part of the summer visiting studio spaces in Barcelona and coming to the conclusion that the spaces at Nauart were significantly better than the rest, I took it as a sign. I immediately went and asked the studio director if there were any open spaces. Luckily for me, someone was moving out the next month and I was able to swoop in.
As an environmental psychologist, I’m well aware of how our surroundings impact our behavior, well-being, and effectiveness. People are at their best in environments and settings that support their purpose or intended behavior. Over the past two months, the scientist in me has been noting how my new space is supporting my work, in both expected and unexpected ways. This is what I’ve discovered so far:
Seeing More Clearly. When I moved into the studio, I brought in a work-in-progress that I’d been struggling with at home. The moment I put it on the easel and stood way back (a luxury I did not have at my home studio) I saw what was wrong and could envision a way forward. There are all sorts of tricks artists use for seeing, like reduction lenses or mirrors, but I think distance is one of the most powerful. Looking from a distance takes the focus off the details and lets you know at a glance whether a piece is working overall or not.
As an added benefit, having more physical space also means having more visual space and thus more variety in focal distance. As people who spend long chunks of time in Zoom meetings or standing close to an easel know, too much time focusing your eyes at the same distance can strain your muscles, leading to eye fatigue and other symptoms.
Closeups from work in the new studio.
Freedom to Make a Mess. One of the first things I did after moving into the studio was step on an oil bar and track it all over. This would have required lots of cleanup in my home studio but was nothing more than a tiny annoyance in the new one. Having the ability to work without subconsciously worrying about keeping the floor and walls clean is freeing and I think will help me work more loosely.
Productivity and Flow. It takes 45 to 60 minutes for me to reach my studio with public transit. The long commute is a down-side (although it does give me time to do a bit of Spanish study). The upside, however, is that once I’m at the studio I’m there for a while with nothing to do but get work done. And without the distractions of home (laundry that could be started, doorbells to answer, the fridge calling me) it’s easier to get into a flow state.
Being in a space with other artists is also motivating. Even if I can’t see people, I know they are in their studio working and this provides subtle positive peer pressure.
Space for Stuff. I finally have room for a dedicated palette table! Being able to clearly see and mix paints is already improving my color mixing and use of color.
As for the rest of my studio organization, I am waiting to fully organize until March when my show is over – in part because I simply don’t currently have the mental bandwidth but also because I like to live in a space for a while before reconfiguring or reorganizing. This helps me understand what I want to do in the space and think about how to design the space to support those intentions.
Unexpected Benefits at Home. An unexpected mental peace has come from removing the “shoulds” and “coulds” of home studio work. As many people have discovered over the past several years, when you work at home there is always a pull to do one more thing. You either have to spend mental energy ignoring the call or you succumb and may find that what was meant to be a quick task has ballooned to fill much more time than you’d intended. But now, if I’m not at my studio, I can’t do studio work and the pull of undone tasks has diminished considerably.
The Down-Side. The long commute and the leaks that are an inevitable problem with large old cavernous spaces are the obvious down-sides of my new space. Less obvious is the slightly unsettled feeling I get from working where people can see me from above. This feeling is likely an evolutionary hold-over from the time when our distant ancestors who were more comfortable in places of refuge were also more likely to survive. I am grateful to have a space with walls and a door but the open top leaves me feeling a bit like a gopher in a glass topped burrow – even if the birds of prey can’t get you, the nervousness persists. If anyone has a solution to this problem, I’d love to hear it!
It wasn’t so long ago that I was dreaming of having any art space that wasn’t a corner carved out of another room. My little home studio was a welcome answer to that dream, but what I need from my work environment has changed as my art practice has developed. Is my new space perfect? No. But it is a big step in my artistic journey and I’m excited to see where it takes me!
What do you need from your studio space?
How have you designed your space and how is that working for you?
