Studios - Tokens From the Well

Putting the U (and I) in “Studio”

November 13, 2018 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to,
In my room.
– Brian Wilson and Gary Usher

In Mary Jane Jacob and Michelle Grabner‘s highly readable and enlightening The Studio Reader, David Reed shares this:

I first saw the work of Felix Gonzalez-Torres in a group show at Artists Space in 1987 in New York. Impressed by his work, I asked to visit his studio. Felix hung his head and said, “Oh David. I’m sorry. I don’t have a studio. I’m just a kitchen table artist.” I loved his phrase, but since I had a mistaken concept of what a studio could be, I didn’t ask to visit. Now, of course, I wish I had.

I too struggled with defining and even discussing my studio space for years. What is it? Where is it? Is it really a studio?

The Truth Is, Studios Evolve

My work, in every sense of the word, has long relied and often revolved around a digital workspace. For most, this doesn’t translate well as a studio destination. Why? The resulting environment isn’t often visually compelling as a space. It has the same effect as watching an electronic musician or a DJ perform: Like watching a guy check his email.

And Then There’s Workshop Space

A peek inside Francis Bacon’s studio at Reece Mews with built-in wall palettes.

As many artists would tell you, a lot of work often occurs in different places. I may work in the garage, the outdoor kitchen, or a hotel room for example. The studio effectively travels with me, and the studio tools are stops along that path.

Prepping a wooden surface ideally happens separately from where painting happens. Sometimes I operate the saw, and sometimes someone else cuts a length of wood for me.

This reality however is in direct contradiction with what many envision “having a studio” to be. In the physical world, what is it really? Is it a complex? Or, is it a group of spaces located in the same city? On the same block?

Ideally for most (and maybe me) the foundation for a good studio would be one warehouse space spanning a few thousand square feet. High ceilings, separate walled-off stations, a spray booth, adequate natural light, color-corrected electrical light, proper ventilation and ducting, a bathroom, utility sinks, and at least one dock with a roll-up door. Unfortunately, this is also often the foundation for an unsustainable business model.

The idea of such a space is appealing, but then there are maintenance costs, utilities, property taxes, and the associated real-world distractions on top of having a living space.

The Heart of the Studio

The heart of my studio, as I would call it, is currently at my home. After a renovation, including an addition of square footage, there are multiple work areas that meet my immediate needs. I call a separate room upstairs “the studio.”

Is everything I need or use there in one location? No, my studio is actually spread out across locations and temporary places. I’m part of a workshop collective where a lot of the messier stuff can happen. I take a notebook with me somewhere and make a drawing. Then I might go home and work into the evening on a desktop.

I’m now convinced more than ever that a single perfect place with everything an ideal practice requires may in fact be unattainable. Maybe even undesirable.

And perhaps that’s a good thing. The thought of an artist content in his environment and satisfied with his surroundings is troubling. Even if he’s at home.

Brain Fuzz: The Podcast

September 15, 2016 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

I’m lucky to call Joe Camoosa a friend. He’s also a great painter. I would say artist, but he doesn’t like being called an artist. (You’ll have to ask him.) So, I’m almost always at a loss as to how I can best describe him.

If you love Tokens From The Well, you’ll at least really like Brain Fuzz. Maybe you’ll love it. And vice versa.

Going back almost a year, and at the urging of more than one other person, he and I started thinking about a podcast. We started recording conversations with no agenda or outline. They were surprisingly cogent. They were also surprisingly coherent and relevant (at least to us).

Then, we started to structure our conversations a bit more. We still allowed for the randomness and variety that makes like interesting, and it all works somehow.

Topics include the creative life, studios, exhibitions, galleries, art travel, music, books, bands, various audiophiliac concerns, and related (or unrelated) minutiae. We typically avoid politics, religion, and sports.

Listen to Brain Fuzz sometime. And better yet, subscribe.

If you like Tokens From The Well, you’ll love Brain Fuzz – the new art, music, and culture podcast. I take that back. Regardless of whether you love Tokens From The Well or not, you’ll probably like Brain Fuzz.

Either way, give it a listen.

So What Did You Do At Hambidge Center?

March 15, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

What you don’t do at Hambidge is more important than what you do.

I came to that conclusion about halfway into my two-week creative residency there. If you haven’t heard of it, the Hambidge Center is a place where creatives of various kinds go, once accepted, to work on proposed projects or creative objectives. At any given time, eight artists reside in separate studios scattered among the woods. The studios generally have no connectivity, no TVs, no mobile signal, and the phone doesn’t dial out. Except for 911.

The Rock House is the gathering point for dinners, laundry, and most importantly, wifi.

In fact, if you choose, you may see no one until 6:30pm when all the creatives commune for dinner in the Rock House. Lively discussion can last well into the night. The largely vegetarian dinners are prepared by a chef who expertly bobs and weaves the finicky dietary requirements that artists are often known for.

Scenic hiking opportunities are plentiful. Spaces to sit and stare at the sky or the neighboring mountainscape are everywhere. One could consume countless days studying the history of the Hambidge Center and the Hambidge Fellows that have passed through it.

But that’s not what you go there for right? I mean, you’re there to work. To produce.

Well, yes and no.

Idle Brains

In his excellent study, Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention, Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi both confirms and debunks a number of long held ideas regarding the creative process for everyone from artists to scientists. In it, he says that achievements in creativity require “surplus attention.” Later he expands on one reason why:

Something similar to parallel processing may be taking place when the elements of a problem are said to be incubating. When we think consciously about an issue, our previous training and the effort to arrive at a solution push our ideas in a linear direction, usually along predictable or familiar lines. But intentionality does not work in the subconscious. Free from rational direction, ideas can combine and pursue each other every which way. Because of this freedom, original connections that would be at first rejected by the rational mind have a chance to become established.

I just remembered where I left my keys.

So What Are You Working On?

Admittedly, while at Hambidge Center, I did not take on quantum dynamics – the domain that one of Csikzentmihalyi’s subjects claimed. But, immediately upon arriving the first night, other creatives do naturally ask, so what are you here working on?

The surroundings are rustic and authentic. This is the way refrigeration was done back in the day, and water at Hambidge Center is spring fed.

I had my prepared answer which I provided. Uncomfortably, I knew that the nature of what I wanted to accomplish while at Hambidge Center might – though would likely not – yield objects I could point to and say look what I made!

My intention for the residency was to finally carve out time during which I could experiment and dive into some technologies I needed to revisit and explore. That’s not usually pretty. It means downloading (which you can do in the Rock House), reading, tinkering, screwing up, realizing that you’re missing a cable, etc. And, in the end, there is often very little, if anything, to show for it. Especially when you forget your Mac’s admin password.

OK, But What Did You Accomplish at Hambidge Center?

You thought I was setting you up for the news that I didn’t do much of anything. Well, that’s not true. I did complete a mixed media work, something that probably would never have happened the way it did if I hadn’t had a pedestal as a furnishing in my studio. I had never had this in my work surroundings, and it made me look at a particular construction in a new way.

And, one day on a hike, I encountered stacked stones that presumably another Fellow had left behind. About that time, the solution to a problem I had been thinking through boiled to the surface.

Ruins along a trail at Hambidge Center.

Looking up at misty mountains on another day during gestural mark making, I had a realization bubble up that will change the direction of future work.

Even more lasting perhaps, I learned a lot about myself and my daily work habits.

Whatever the domain, it is difficult sometimes to get OK with the realization that ideas, answers, and improvements take time. We have an innate or culturally engrained requirement to point to a result – a product, an object, a manuscript – as quickly as possible after time spent with a problem. But, if innovations or a breakthrough in any field are to occur, staring at the sky is a necessary part of the creative process.

If you can get over the self-imposed production requirement, things start to happen in time. And, time is what you have at Hambidge.