Organizing the Art Studio

Falling Boxes!!!! It is not a pop band...hahah! It is a conditional disaster in my overwhelmingly disorganized art studio! Interior design is more than just a look or a style; it's about how our belongings are organized to suit their purpose. Time to RE-DO IT!

QUOTE by designer Charles Eames. 

'Design is a plan for arranging elements in a way that best accomplishes a particular purpose.'

READ MORE ABOUT OUR BUILDING from scratch!

Building our new house was designed with the view in mind and for ease of cleaning, and neither of us wanted to climb stairs. An art studio shared with my musician mate was designed with some soundproofing for me, as I needed space for my creative art world. The items were in storage for over a year, so when they arrived, everything was still in boxes. We have been unpacking them since December 2011.

Between buying new shelving, finding free chairs & cabinets on the side of the road, and inexpensive work tables, it took some time to fill the studio. Along the way, I adopted a cute little firecracker named Ziggy. He doesn't like my art studio, as stuff is always FALLING DOWN, so I keep him on a chair.

My art studio was LOOMING over my head with boxes still unpacked. I was always LOOKING for my stuff, so it was completely disorganized and driving me nuts.

 

BLACK LOOMING plastic shelves moved into the center of my art studio, as they used to be in the washroom, now turned into a songwriting room. Always hated those shelves with canning jars and crap on them, blocking my light. I had to clear out the electrical room to put in the black loom shelves with the canning jars, where they can loom away! GOOD RIDDANCE!

I have put off this daunting task of reorganizing my whole art studio. Still, winter was coming, and one lovely, sunny day with no wind, which is rare living on the ocean, presented the perfect opportunity to empty the entire studio to the outside driveway and start from scratch.

I also needed an open space so I can handle large framing projects with the ability to walk around four sides of the 2 working tables. 

I needed to make room on my walls to make a display for the corner frame samples. A large sheet of mat board stuck together to a thick piece of cardboard, and 4 strips of 2-inch velcro were going to be my new display. It took me four tries with various glues to find that regular Goop worked to stick the 2-inch plastic Velcro to the paperboard. Fortunately, the framing corners come with velcro on their corner, so all I had to do was make the display for them to attach to.

Being an artist is an endless series of projects that is not always about making art, but about building a business around the art. Recently, I bought new tools for customizing framing services for my art collectors...read more here. 

It's incredible how different the art studio looks now, and how much easier it is to find everything. It's a perfect space for framing and creating art. I love nothing more than grabbing a cup of tea and spending hours in the studio, feeling as though only a minute has passed. This is the joy of living my life as an artist: time flies when you're having fun, especially after a thorough clean-up!

If you're not happy with something, remember that you have the power to change it.