Almost as much as I enjoy making art, I enjoy making art spaces. And, almost as much as I enjoy making art spaces, I enjoy looking at art spaces made by other artists! That is why I pour over every issue of Where Women Create for hours and hours, and also why I enjoy doing the same with Studios Magazine. I just can't get enough of seeing where people write and create. It is also why I am thrilled to be participating in this special studio-blog tour with artists friends I have had the pleasure to get to know, both in person and on line.
At the bottom of this post, there will be links to other the studios worked in by these artists. Make sure to cultivate the voyeur within, and check them all out. I know I will for sure! And now, without further ado, come in and wander around while I weave my tale...
Not long ago I had a visit from an old friend, Suzanne Bloom. I was showing her the art for my latest picture book, due out in the fall of 2012. This friend and I go back more than 35 years to the days we were both hard working craftsmen living in Buffalo, she creating toys in wood and I making puppets and dolls and sculpting and sewing away in textiles. You can read more of that history here. We lost touch for many years, only to discover each other again in the last five, and to also discover that we both ended up in the field of children’s books, as authors and illustrators. That was a wonderfully strange twist of fate!
As she looked through the pages of the new picture book she said to me, “You really project a sense of collecting into all of your art!” I had to stop and wonder about it for a moment. I had not thought about it that way, but I realized she was right. I collect. I accumulate. And I am totally in love with the past and always have been. And I suddenly realized that all of my artwork for the past 40 years has been more less all about my obsession with the passing of time. I blog a lot about that obsession on this blog: Cats and Jammers Studio. Believe me, if I could time travel, I would.
In everything I have created, whether paintings, puppets, dolls, fiber or illustration and design, I have always drawn from what once was. It began in Buffalo in 1972 where I started to work with cloth and mixed media, and where I also began to make regular visits to the Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift stores for not only cheap furnishings but for the raw materials for my fiber art and puppets. And it continues to this day, when I draw the objects of my affection into my book work, my editorial art, and my design for licensing.
Of course, it’s not just that I keep the imagery alive in my head and my heart for inspiration. I also need to live with the actual stuff as much as I can. I surround myself with it, in almost every room of where we live, including my studios. I like to think of decorating a house as art that you live within and I have always subscribed to this motto: “LESS IS NEVER MORE, AND MORE IS NEVER ENOUGH.” I learned to live by that philosophy thanks to my mother and grandmother. Minimalists they were not.
So join me for a little tour of my house, my heart and my studios. There are really no distinctions between those. Even though I have a studio for wet media, a studio space for wood, and a studio where I sew or work on my computer, I frequently make art wherever I am or happen to be, and sometimes that is simply in the kitchen.
First, I am going to take you over to my painting studio, where I get messy creating for picture books or on canvas. This studio is in an old textile mill building right here in Needham , MA. It was originally built in the late nineteenth century and it was the home of a corset making factory. Talk about "Where Women Create!" Women certainly did create there! It was in this old building, Gorse Mill, that hard working women sat at the machines for hours and hours for meager wages. A few years ago the building was converted into all artist studio condos and I am thrilled to have one of those spaces. One caveat, though--when I work there late at night, all alone, I hear footsteps above me. And I KNOW no one is there. Must be those working women of the 19th century toiling away still.
Some of these photos were shot when I was in the middle of a picture book. And some are more current. I am now working on canvas and antique dough boards.
The spreads of the picture book are all pinned up on the walls.
At work and covered with paint.
In progress.
Almost done.
Now I am working on large canvases and antique dough boards.
One of the two Elvis'--or is that "Elvi?--watch over me....
Now for a peek at the home studio where I just finished my latest picture book as both author and illustrator, Glamorous Glasses, as well as the latest Bones book wirtten by David A. Adler, Bones and the Football Mystery, using my Cintiq and my computer. I also use this studio to design fabrics and to create other art for licensing. This is also where I write. The space is cozier and very good for the kind of focus and concentration I need to lose myself in a story. Sometimes I listen to a sound machine tuned to the noise of running water.I use a headset when I write that way. I discovered that I get my best ideas in the shower and it was the closest I could get to recreating that effect!
At work on the Cintiq.
The doll house for which I am going to make all the furniture.
My fabric designs.
Just a small part of my obsession with eye glasses...
My constant companion--my dog Bitty. She is very at home in both studios,but she especially loves the home studio.
As you can see, I have a weakness for old store fixtures and antique cupboards. I can never have enough of those. I also think that I will take any space, even a large one, and carve it into smaller, tighter spaces. That seems to be the way I love to work. Nay, the way I need to work.
Now go check out all these wonderful artists and their working spaces!
