Process
Making Art
What does an artist do?.
The process that gets you from...nothing...to a completed work is difficult to put into words.
There are so many inputs, coming from every experience. The artists eye is always looking.
And perhaps I'm on the phone, I doodle something abstract, a shape, something wierd, on a post-it. Somehow it relates, ever so mysteriously, to all that imput, but its not deliberate or conscious. I get off the phone. Iforget about doodle. A few days later I glance at the post-it and it strikes me. " Hmmm. Interesting...It's just a momentary hit. I save it. It ends up in the studio. It waits.
Continued >>>>>
Writing
The Artists Studio: The Search for the Perfect Space
All visual artists always need studio space and studio space is always hard to find. Artists can be good renters because they'll put up with so much, or so little—sometimes the funkier the better. It's not a cliché about "starving artists". When I began doing art seriously I demanded that the art pay for itself—that what I spent on my art had to be paid for by the studio. Somehow I've always come out ok, but I never had money for the kind of studio you see in art magazines—and that’s true of all of us, except for a tiny minority of actual recognized artists, some of which produce incredible art, and others who don't and who we won't talk about.
Artists are always looking for the most room for the least money—we like going where no one else would possibly want to go. Maybe we'll find that perfect spot: good light, high ceilings, lots of room and a place that won't mind an unholy mess, even if we do clean it up periodically.
In Portland, I had a studio in the pregentified Pearl in a half-destroyed building with gaping holes in the walls waiting to be gentrified. Who else could have used that space, but a crazy artist. Still I was relatively happy. No one bothered me and I got lots of work done. I had a couple of studios in Old Town, one above a Mexican restaurant whose kitchen, it seemed, was vented into my space. Whenever I came home from working (usually at night), I smelled like refried beans.
Studios Continued >>>>>
MORE WRITING>>>>>