As you know, my other business is dyeing yarn, and for years I had a job weaving saddle pads on a giant loom. Seriously, the loom was the size of my car. In my studio. ACK.In addition to the giant loom, I had tall shelving along all the walls to hold Etsy inventory and supplies.
This summer, I ended my job weaving which meant the loom would be gone and I decided I needed to convert some of that wall space to gallery space for my artwork. I love having people out to the studio and I want to schedule some open studio evenings next year for people to come see the artwork. Eric and I thought long and hard about how to make the transition.
We took out the tall built-ins and book shelves and put in heavy duty rolling shelf units that are much shorter. Then my brilliant husband took the wood from the old built-in shelves and turned it into table tops for the new units. We love salvaged wood! You can just see some of them on the carts to the left of the tall lights. They still show some pencil marks from their original purpose.
Eric also built and installed a narrow shelf to hold artwork on the back and west walls. This way I can display a lot of my art at one time instead of keeping it wrapped up and hidden.
The cart shelves can be wheeled away from the walls whenever we need and I will be adding simple fabric curtains to hide the boxes when we have more formal studio events in this space.
All of the dyed yarn is in the carts, which means I can reach every skein without a ladder. Yay!
My studio couch is no longer surrounded by boxes and stacks of stuff. It's a comfortable place to sit and visit, rest, sketch, or browse through some books for inspiration. I love that couch. It folds out into a futon as well, which makes the studio a guest house as well.
One of the things I'd been tripping all over was the set of lights I use when photographing the art for the web. They fold way down, but I didn't want to have to rebuild them every time I needed to take a quick photo.
I arranged things so that the lights can fit back against this section of carts, which is always set up for photographing. There's a wide walk around so the feet aren't in the way. Much easier and no tripping.
This is my painting corner. Not much changed here, except that the rest of the room is much more open with the loom gone and that really affects how I feel when I paint.
The light is a chicken lamp, with a fluorescent bulb. Very bright and a great feature until we get some track lighting up there.
The door on the left is to a small bathroom - essential for us since the current house only has one bathroom. [A second is in the works.]
I keep reminding myself that this is a working studio - a hard working studio - and it's okay that it's always in flux. We've got multiple projects going all the time. [That's an antique table in pieces on the table there. All stripped and sanded, ready for a final gluing and shellacking.]
All in all, I am thrilled with the new look out here. It feels great and is conducive to peaceful, creative work. If you're interested in coming to the studio to see my artwork, please let me know. We'll set up a time for you to come. In addition, I'll be offering many classes here again next year and will be posting the schedule soon. Stay tuned.
