The GREAT BIG Studio!!!

I have now officially moved to a GREAT BIG STUDIO!  For my first year out of art school I had no studio at all, and my wife and I lived in a very very small apartment, so if I was going to paint, it had to be out on location.  This turned out to be a blessing, as the best way to learn and grow is to get out and paint the real thing.  After a year I  scored my first studio: a converted janitor’s closet in an art center in Bozeman.  It was so small that for me to paint in the studio, I had to move everything out into the hall every day.  I actually sold some artwork this way, as people would see pastels taped to drawing boards leaned up against the walls.  After another year, I moved into a somewhat bigger studio in the same building, and stayed there for the next ten years.

After moving to Livingston, with a lot of help from my Dad and a friend, we converted an alley garage into a studio.  It’s a beautiful space that has served me well for the last six years.  Here’s a pic I took just before the move:

It’s, well, rather full.  I’ve never been accused of being organized, (I’m always fighting the forces of chaos!) but there was a point when my wife looked around the studio and admitted that no matter how much cleaning and organizing that I did, it was just full.  And stuff was overflowing into the house, boxes, half-finished frames etc.

The short of it is this: we found a GREAT BIG STUDIO with a very reasonable rent.  It’s in an old schoolhouse in downtown Livingston.  Here are the first pics:

 

The pic to your left is the main room.  Yes, you hear that right, the main room. There are more: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the pic to the right is a storage room.  And, yes, it’s bigger than the janitor’s-closet-studio.  Frame-moulding, gold leafing equipment, glass and finished frames go here. There’s more:

This will be the office.  Just need to find some furniture.

I’ve finally unpacked enough to start working, and I’ve noticed two things straight off: First, I don’t have the distractions (or shall I call it temptations!) of home.  I would wander into the house to use the bathroom, decide to make coffee, check facebook, and look!  There went a half-hour!  Oops. I’ve already been more productive in the new space. Second, I’m finding it easier to work on multiple paintings.  Right now I have two paintings, a pastel, and a charcoal drawing in the works.  Quite simply, I have the room to set something aside when I’m stuck and start on another piece.

I’m still pinching myself.  I’ve visited big studios, subverted feelings of envy, and somehow thought I’d never have one myself.  Now here it is.  I am not a New Year’s resolution kind of person, but I have started to hope that I’ll look back on this move as a creative transition, that in this room I’ll learn to be less afraid of large paintings, that I’ll take some more risks, and use the gift of time in a way that shows how grateful I am to have it.