YOU are the art studio
How to think outside of the box while simultaneously going deeper in. Myths about art studios, and tips for creating one.
Hello dear creative creature,
Happy near full moon. This month, on the new moon, I started moving out of my beautiful painting studio.
This one.
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Normally I write first about something I went through, and then what I learned about it. Today I’m going to take more of a Jeremy Bearimy type approach.
Before I talk about the process of leaving behind a perfect art studio that means so much to me, I want to offer some myth checks about art studios centered around some things I have learned.
Art studio myth number 1: You need a large space to create good art.
Reality: Creativity thrives on constraints, and creative persistence always finds (or creates) a way. A lot of amazing art is made in small, makeshift spaces by passionate art-making punks and professional artists who can make meaningful and quality work regardless of the scale of an enclosed space that they do or do not occupy.
Art studio myth number 2: A studio should be completely separate from daily life to avoid distractions.
Reality: The idea that good creative practice only happens in a secluded cavelike vacuum of sublime peace is a limiting idea. A quiet, designated, comfortable environment is very nice, retreat is wonderful, but creative practice is not reserved only for when you can completely isolate and shut yourself out from the world. Integrating our practices into our daily lives is an essential part of the practice itself. Waiting for the perfect conditions can stifle the process. Side note, noise cancelling headphones can make you feel more centered in your own experience in any space.
Art studio myth number 3: A formal studio is essential for feeling like a “real” artist.
Reality: Being an artist is more about the practice of creating than the physical space where it happens. Your creative energy is the source, and you are portable. Your body, mind, and ideas are what really make up your “studio”. What makes a space special is the life that you breathe into it.
Art studio myth number 4: A studio is a three-dimensional space.
Reality: Your studio is a reflection of your multidimensional outpourings. There may perhaps be infinite dimensions. Every touch you bring to the material space you make your art in is part of your energetic, multi-layered, evolving expression of self.
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Here’s the story:
My beautiful and perfect painting studio was a big white box with gorgeous filtered light that caused me (and my studio plants) to really thrive.
It was a sanctuary.
This space was private. It had two locking doors. One to the studio itself, and one to a dark storage room attached to it. “Dark storage room” sounds creepy, but it was actually a bonus sanctuary. The storage room held some larger paintings and more supplies and had a book nook, a pink glowing salt lamp, and a meditation cushion in it. Sometimes (a lot of times) I would go in there and turn all of the lights off, close the door, and lay on the floor for a half an hour to try to temporarily cease to exist and also remember to feel the profoundly comforting effect of gravity on my body that often gets ignored in the airy process of creating things and running a business.
I really loved having this whole space. I loved it so much.
This painting studio is located in the back half of the building that my small business / printed goods brand, Worthwhile Paper, occupies. In my business space (which I cherish dearly) I have an office, a workshop space, inventory space, places for my team to work and ship our goods from. The back of the building, however, is a whole different and totally separated space. It is a quiet space with 6 private art studios, my glorious painting studio being one of them (April 2022 - Aug 2024, RIP)
This means there was a substantial physical boundary between my business-oriented work and my art-making work, even though it was in the same building. This might all sound kind of weird so I just wanted to set the scene.
So back in 2022 when I gleefully ushered all of my art supplies from this little corner room in my business space into their own designated and spacious studio of solitude and peace, I thought, what more could an artist want than a quiet and peaceful big white box with diffused light and closed doors?
Now I know that one answer might be to not run out of money. The studio rent was several hundred additional dollars per month, dollars that I had more of as a small business owner in 2022 than in 2024.
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The process of deciding to let go of the space was an embarrassingly drawn-out journey. Just take Phase One, for example, which consisted of firmly believing that there was no way in hell I would give up my perfect sanctuary. It would be the last thing I would ever surrender! Take my body first!
Phase Two was a fourfold process of time, digestion, decision fatigue, and grief. After being with my experience in the space deeply for long enough, the decision became clear. It turns out I was keeping a secret from myself, and that secret was that the stress about the cost was inhibiting my ability to fully enjoy the space, and this stress was increasing over time.
For a long time, this secret was disguised as a feeling of not deserving the space, and I used strategies to believe otherwise, which worked. On my studio altar* I had a piece of paper flipped upside down with affirmations on it, one of them being “I deserve this space”.
Obviously, I deserved this space. Just because you can’t afford something doesn’t mean you don’t deserve it. I know I deserved that space, because I believe that every artist deserves space, and I knew I was bringing so much reverence and gratitude into it. So once I knew I deserved it, why did I still feel so uneasy?
Phase Three was acceptance. I knew I felt uneasy because I was, in these little secret ways, putting pressure on myself to keep justifying the cost of my studio that I treasured so much, even though I knew deep down it wasn’t essential or financially responsible, and once I made the choice to let it go, although there was so much sadness leading up to it, I ultimately felt lighter in my heart, less stressed, humbled, and strangely hopeful.
Moving art supplies and paintings and tables is of course a very physical, embodied process. And one has to have a balance between being nonchalant while also treating everything as sacred. Throwing stuff away is nonchalant! Throwing stuff away is also sacred! Using my body to move and organize my creations and supplies felt like an important ritual undertaking, and it was really helpful for discharging energy and feeling like I was taking action toward a positive and aligned change.
I moved everything back into the corner room up front in my work space, and this is where I felt this unexpected, profound gaping vortex of truth open up.
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The profound gaping vortex of truth
The truth is that I am the art studio and the art studio is me.
The old/new thing I was calling a corner (it’s actually an 8 x 8 foot space with windows!) where my art-making space is now is so different than it ever was before. It’s alive. Once I cleaned and moved my things in, it felt instantly enlivened.
Back in the big-perfect-space, I cultivated so much energy. I really honed in on developing my process. I created imprints, systems, patterns, signatures, placements, both invisible and visible, both subtle and gross.
I don’t know why I am surprised that all of that wouldn’t be left alone to evaporate in the space I vacated, and that instead it would all come with me. Of course it would. It is as if all of the energy I built and grew and generated will follow me where I go, and it lives in the objects I use too. It’s hiding in the plants too.
It feels like traveling and coming home. You arrive and your home is home again. It feels like I gifted myself a two year residency but the residency lives inside me now and in my mortars and pestles and the perfect workbench my dad helped me modify to fit in the room that’s less than half the size of the one before.
I have so much gratitude and love to have any space at all to create art. I know if I didn’t have this corner here, I would carve out a different corner at home for painting. Like I said, persistence will create the means. This experience puts me in a better headspace to be even more thankful, especially realizing how much excess I didn’t need compared to what I could create from what I already had.
One of the last things I removed from my sensory deprivation chamber *ahem cough* I mean art storage room, was a little plaque of letters I created for mine and Avery’s art show entitled “F U L L C I R C L E” which I installed onto a wall in my old/new space, and I feel like I’ve come full circle once again.
Yeah, I’m sad I don’t have the luxury suite anymore, when I see photos of it that I took I get a little tender, but I am grateful I did get to have it at one point, and surprised by how portable it really was.
The art studio is me. Wherever I go, the art studio goes too.
My three top tips for setting up an art space, no matter the dimensions:
You can create a studio space out of any space. Yes, you are that powerful. Even a designated corner in an existing room will work great. It can be one singular table. The point is to go there. Be intentional and deliberate about what the space is for. It’s for you. Your studio square footage can be any size that fits your capabilities to occupy. You can make art anywhere, but it is great to have a basecamp big or small, a touch point that is a specific anchor for your creative energy and home for your supplies. Create boundaries if needed, invisible or visible.
A brand new designated studio space might not feel like much at first, that’s because a studio is only a studio when you are present, making things in it. You are the actual studio. It might take some getting used to, but once you start working in your designated space, watch how it unfolds as a living and evolving limb of your own creation. You might be surprised.
Have a creative altar. It’s not religious. It’s also religious. An altar is simply a point of connection between the material and the spirit worlds and a creative space in itself.
My new altar affirmations Creativity is both a material and spiritual endeavor as one, and having an altar is a way of acknowledging that and providing nourishment for your senses and proof of your commitment to the deeper parts of creativity. *My way of designing a creative altar is simple and involves incorporating all 5 elements. A vessel with water. A candle with fire. Rocks and incense for earth. Flowers for air. Space between all objects. I like to also include written affirmations or anything else special that is bringing me meaning or inspiration. I like to keep my altar on a designated gold tray. Get creative. Light the candle. Refill the water. Clean it regularly. Be nonchalant with it. Be sacred with it.
Keep practicing.
- Kristen
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I’d love to know what you think!
Do you have a designated creative space? What it is like? What is your relationship with space?
i often feel overwhelmed in a big-ish space for my writing practice! don't get me wrong, i like having a big desk, but often i enjoy the cozy feeling of being tucked into a corner of the room when i sit down to write or watercolor or whatever other creative activity i'm working on that day. thanks so much for sharing this journey! ❤️🌻
I loved stumbling across this post today! So beautifully written and resonates deeply with my experience with various studios over the years.
I used to have a commercial studio space, but eventually ended up leaving because I realized that having a space outside of the home, while it had its benefits, was in an effort to get the approval of other people. I thought that the studio would make others take me/my art more seriously. Turns out, the real work was in learning how to take myself and my own art more seriously. That work is where the magic lives, and it occurs by continuously tending to my art, over and over. It doesn't matter where that tending to occurs.