Studio Inspiration
I mentioned in a previous blog how part of the appeal of the HGTV show That’s Clever, for me, is that I get to see inside the studio of other artists. I have seen many tenacious artists carve out space for themselves in the kitchen or the garage. I had no idea how many American (and Canadian) households have dining-room art studios! In the house we previously rented, my studio was in the dining-room. That was about six years ago. It was my first real dedicated art space.
I would love to peek inside of your studio, no matter how small – or big – at the parts you keep around for inspiration. There are lots of wonderful resources for organizing, but this post is about inspiration. Do you keep shards of your own broken projects on display? Do you display work you just couldn’t let go of? How about art your kids have given you? Inspirational quotes? I am asking folks to post photos of the bits of their studio that are for the simple purpose of sentimentality and inspiration.
If you have a couple of photos of the first art space you made for yourself – all the better!
Please post your blog and photos then come here and leave a link in my comments of this posting so I can come see your studio!
Here are my photos to start things off!
These first three photos are of my dining room “studio” at the house we used to rent.
You can tell this is my dining room because you can see my living room behind me. The dining room table ended up in the living room. I loved that my family was happy to give up the space. They have always been great cheerleaders!
This little chest of drawers was my first supply cabinet. The chest was my baby wardrobe – which makes it “vintage” – lol!
(click to see larger)
The above photo shows my inspiration wall loaded full of flowers and faeries. Mostly Brian Froud, Amy Brown, Jessica Galbreth and some kid art. I also see that the souvenir stuff for “Streetcar Named Desire” is behind me. I wonder where that is? When I had this studio space I only really did drawings and watercolors, so it was much simpler and neater!
I don’t really know what I will ever do with the many bottle caps and corks I have, but I love having them just to look at them. I leave them out in these clear containers, where Will put them.
(click for large image)
This is a cabinet I keep some of my supplies in. It is nearly covered in lots of little bits that I love, such as love notes and birthday cards, to photos, artwork, postcards, fairies, fortune-cookie papers and all manner of fun and shiny things. Sometimes I will just come across a photo in a magazine I love and tape it up there. In this photo you can see the “Deputante” ad – which I’ve had since the 11th grade! There is a napkin from my wedding, doodles I have found around the house, a sketch Will did of me and a picture of Robert kissing me back when he had his mullet a million years ago, and some Amy Brown, Jessica Galbreth and Julia Musengo art as well.
I love having some of my art supplies very visible just because it makes me want to use them all the more. There is something visually tasty about messy paint brushes just waiting to be used!
In this photo there is art by me – the two yonis, the blue woman’s head, horns and crowns as well as mermaid and blue face and goddess. The metal cat was a gift from my friend Sherry. there are art tiles I purchased from Tammy Vitale and Parran Collery – both Southern Maryland artists. I have several pieces by both of them. Also in the background you can see an Egyptian style plaque my daughter made and a mask she made many years ago. There is also a lovely little moon-shaped tin that used to have lavender candy in it. I never even thought you could eat lavender before I got that little treat at Coleman’s Nursery in Norfolk, VA many moons (hee) ago. Coleman’s Nursery was the place to visit around Christmas time because they had animated puppets and lots of cool decorations and stuff. We loved going there!
In this photo there is a sun suncatcher, a mermaid I got a a gift store (you can’t see her tail in the photo) a couple of tiles I made, a wall-hanging my friend Tracy gave me, some cards pressed in glass.
Fairy hanging in the corner with some stars that Will had tucked away from some community theatre production many years ago. Maybe he can fill us in on the details. Anyway, I like having things hanging from the ceiling. There’s something sort of magical about it.
Some origami cranes that my daughter Jade made and a stained glass dragonfly that I traded for at the Faerie Festival a few years ago.
Fairy wings that I never sold. Aren’t they pretty? 
And what can be more inspiring than a clean and organized studio – VIEW HERE.
Ok – you’re turn!
16 Responses “Studio Inspiration”
An admirer from Belgium
oh – MUCH easier! Links pop out. Comment area easily accessible! LOVE this post!
YAY!!!! Now, I just need to spread the word about this post so I can get some artists do participate!
Thanks for the feedback!
hi heather,
I would be happy to post some pictures of my studio as soon as I have a chance…my mother had an emergency colonectomy (she’s 82) on monday and it’s been kind of crazy….tomorrow she goes into a rehabilitation hospital for a few weeks and things should quiet down again…then I can do it…my studio’s not really done yet as we only just finished it about 6 months ago and all I’ve done is paint in it and not really “fixed it up”…anyway, you have inspired me to get a move on!!
thanks for asking me!
Linda – this post will stay up, so take your time, but know I am really looking forward to seeing your new creative space! I’m very sorry about your mom
My mom is having some health issues too, so I understand. Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to your post.
Love the studio photos! I’ll get going on this while the studio is relatively clean:) But then there’s the kitchen area that’s turned into the jewelry area-it never ends! I added your blog to my link list, hope you don’t mind but it’s the easiest way for me to remember where to find who I want to find.
I appreciate the add
I am working on my link list as we speak. I hate how it says “blogroll” and I want it to say “links” so I had to do some stuff and now I have to migrate them all over to the new category. Anyhoo enough of that boring stuff! I look forward to your post! This is fun!
Sue & Linda – I emailed both of you but they were both returned to me. We recently changed servers and have a new IP address. We think that the IP we have been given maybe was used by spammers or something in the past so it’s blocked by some servers. The hubby is working on letting folks like Hotmail and Comcast that we aren’t evil spammers
LOL! Hopefully they will clear the gates for us!
It seems that sometimes my email kicks some folks out for no apparent reason, and I even have the spam filter turned off. I’ll go whitelist you to be on the safe side, in case it’s not an isolated incident.
Heather thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment. Glad my little paint box was an inspiration to you and thanks for sharing such great inspirations of your own. I will try to get a few more photos up soon. This week is rather hectic with college kids home for spring break, so it is sand, flip flops and swinging fridge doors at the moment. I added you to my Art Friends links so I will be sure to come back for more inspiration.
Do you live at the beach? We toss around the idea of moving to the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater area sometimes.
I look forward to your photos! You’re little paint box is a nice place to start. It makes me think of how I felt when I would get a big fresh box of sharp crayons.
I will return to bring you something more recent later this week (month). Until then I can offer you this: http://on-my-desk.blogspot.com/2006/11/ascender.html
I love the jars and the shot of the homemade ornaments. I love love love funky ornaments on my Yule/Solstice tree! I’m a big fan of stars and moons and mermaids and fairies. I like your lights dangling down and how long does it take to water all of those flowers each day? I wish I could grow something that pretty!
Heather, you have such a lovely and inspiring studio space!
I have to admit that my studio is very utilitarian: I have little in the way of other people’s art or even my own. I use it to create art, and thus stuff every available nook and cranny full of shelves to hold art supplies, or bulletin boards to hold paper I need to deal with (not ephemera, but boring items like bills), or peg boards for tools. However, I will try to take a few pics. The problem is remembering to do so . . . . I’m sure you understand the creative impulse. It hits, and you can be so immersed in it that you neglect other things, like posingt back to an interesting artist (like yourself), or paying your bills on time (drat, they were overlapping). I do manage to write in my blog, and make art. Since I also work part time in a paying job, when I do manage a few hours in my studio, I am often ruthless about making sure that I make art, and pushing all other considerations aside (I am reconsidering the word ruthless, and have decided it is apt).
Thanks for your comment, and invitation.
Carol – maybe for you it’s the supplies themselves that serve as enough inspiration? It seems to me that as long as you have all of those supplies, just looking at them can bring on creative impulses. Yes? That’s what matters! I’m sure you aren’t alone in the way you do things. There are probably lots of artists who want nothing more in their space than the supplies to create them. Of course the bills are something we have to deal with – blah! LOL! I look forward to your photos!
There is an artist named Ragen Mendenhall who does beautiful work. She has some photos of her studio up here: http://www.ragensart.com/studio/artstudio.html
Is asking you to marry me also participating Heather ?
An admirer from Belgium