Just another little detail in the path to a more thought-about studio space. I have spent so many years with so many different types of studios. The floor in this one is giving me art school feelings all over again. I like it. My fine art program in college gave us our own studio once we became a junior. I felt like the coolest person on earth. A raw and worn 150 square feet filled with turpentine, metal stools, bulk rolls of canvas, lumber (cause I built my own, I was so tough), stereo, and a drafting table. I painted most of my canvases with them stapled to the wall then transferred them to stretchers. What messes I made on those floors. Gritty, baby. I dared not let my love of sweet things like fashion and clothing show amongst the fine-art crew.
After I started making clothes to sell at shops while in school, the secret was out. I learned not to apologize for being interested in beautifully colorful things that were more obviously beautiful than all the conceptual fine art making I was trained under. So after college my next studio was an 1800 square foot store-which was amazing fun. But overwhelming too. When I translated the clothing line from retail to wholesale and took the studio home, wow, that was hard to fit it all in. Years and years of fabric. I actually sold off a lot of it.
Anyway ever since then we've had several homes but are settled now in the one we never want to leave. So I am at the point where I'm ready to focus on this 500 square feet as mine. It'll always be changing, I imagine, like the rest of my house. Those ripped strips of fabric on that chair will likely be part of a some project after another year or so. And maybe there will be conflicts in design between the gritty painting side with paint splattered easels and tables and the darling sentimental sewing spaces with cutesy nooks and granny fabrics. So be it. It's all me. I am a study in conflict.
xo,AM