I loved my little desk corner of my home studio. It got me through teaching online during at 4 different schools during a pandemic and became a place to display all my favorite little things. However, it required putting on mental blinders, because if you stepped back….
…this is what you got. Exposed heating duct which dripped condensation in the summer…all over my desk. An uncovered, uninsulated wall, which leaked cold air in the winter. I am pretty good at managing to work amidst chaos but because all of my studio spaces at home have some desperate need of work that needed to be done, this is where I decided to start.
I took down the fabric “wall” and insulated a bit more. We were going to build this out into a cabinet or something but I decided I’d rather just have the blank wall space.
Once the wall was whole-ish again, I started to build out the soffit and then began the spackling process.
While working on that wall, I also decided to include the bay window where I sculpt. This has been various forms of casting and/or sculpting areas but recently I’ve been working at a table on the left side because the light is so beautiful. The right side is usually some weird pile of plaster or molds or random unidentifiable chaos.
I decided to paint this nook black and will eventually gold leaf the tiny fancy ceiling, but another day… I included this chair that I love but we had no great place for and perhaps my favorite thing of all, a tiny table for my coffee in the morning. (On a recent job site for a commission, I saw these tiny brass drink tables and became obsessed. Now I have my own tiny brass drink table…for fanciness.)
And while I’m still in the process of resetting my desk and all my favorite things, I am so happy to not have giant holes in the walls all around me. It so true that the space around you can greatly affect how you feel and this already feels so great. As I get older I am (slowly) learning the lessons of what to do first before settling into a space, rather than just working around things. Anyway, here’s to making new things in the studio!