I can't go that far, my wife is tolerant, but not that tolerant. I still use one bedroom for studio, another as an office, and another for storage. Too much in store really, I have the same problem of getting into a gallery.
I lived in my studio for a few years, and it was the most formative period of my art making thus far. I look back on it all the time—and aim towards that kind of freedom again.
I love the passion you write about when describing your living/making art space. I live alone (with a dog) in a paid for house with 3 bedrooms. One room is my studio (the biggest of the 'bedrooms'), the middle one is a gallery space (with a bed so when my son visits he can sleep there) and then the medium one where I sleep. I have finished 153 pieces (sculpture/assemblage) and my finished work besides being in the middle room, has now taken over my dining-room table. I only use that table twice a year......to prepare my taxes on and Thanksgiving when family is over for dinner. I don't have a gallery and I'm running out of space to put finished pieces but I'll think of something. I love having my studio in my home so I can work there in the middle of the night when insomnia sticks around (almost every night). My house is looking like a museum with not only my art all over the place, but with all the vintage collectibles I own. I'm selling some to make more room for my art. Gotta create, right?
Very cool Annette! Turn your whole house into your museum/conservatory/staging gallery! If you are selling vintage collectibles why not sell some of your art the same way? Use other people's walls. In my case I always say; "The best storage is gallery storage." Get in a gallery.
"Get in a gallery" you state! Easier said than done to be cliche about it. Not an easy thing to do for me. I've tried but perhaps not hard enough. Not good at convincing a gallery to take me on and they have given me all sorts of reasons/excuses. But I won't give up. I have a few ideas still. I had it good when I was with New Gallery long ago. What I'd love to have is an agent; someone to work for me in getting me a gallery.
Just a random thought. Why not “loan” pieces to your friends to display in their houses so that you get a tiny bit of exposure for your work? Or loan a piece of art to your local restaurants or other local places of business? (Kind of like individuals loaning their piece of art to a museum for a specific period of time.). Have a little one sheet “bio” with your contact information that they can pull out. (My mother was an artist, and we have collected art from all over the world, so people always want a tour of our house even though nothing we have is for sale,)
We are vacationing in Maine and while on the road in this beautiful state and see “sandwich boards” in front of residential houses that advertise it is a studio. (This may be prohibited by your deed restrictions.)
Again, random thoughts on a Sunday morning in Portland, ME.
Thank you for your thoughts on my issue with displaying my art, Lynn. I appreciate it. These are good ideas if I did wall-hanging art, but I do sculptures/assemblages and while they are strong-in-created, there would be some fragility to some of the pieces and they'd need pedestals and I've even had pieces disturbed when in public spaces included in shows. I still have a few plans to work on to find a gallery but I am the queen of procrastination and while that's not an excuse, it's something I need to overcome. At 68 it gets harder to make myself do what I need to do. I like that quaint Maine sandwich boards thing but nowadays, I don't want strangers in my home as I feel somewhat vulnerable living alone.
Yeah, I think an agent could be a good idea (if you can find one) to get you in multiple galleries. Just put the prices high enough to cover all that. It is kind of like what they say about making a website. you can put all the work into it but if it doesn't get any traffic what's the point? Same with writing a book, you can write the book but then you have to go through all of the work of publishing and publicizing it.
Early on I realized I needed to work in the studio part of the time and then put on my Rep Hat and spend the rest of the time promoting the work. It is a double job. the whole cycle is getting the work from a nail on your wall to the nail on the collectors wall.
The best scenario is being financially well off enough to not worry about showing and selling it. But if you can't do that then you have to get to where you make the hustle into part of the art process.
My problem is I have to live from my efforts because I can't stand to go out and do something else for a living. We all need a 100,000 a year Basic Income allowance. Maybe some artist can do that as an art project, try to get a bill though congress to get all creatives a 100K basic income so we don't have to think about money. Maybe chat GPT can come of with that. I am going to try it...
I keep going back to my original reason for doing art........because I need to. And showing/selling it was down the list. I can afford to just make art and not sell it. But my poor kids; when I kick the bucket they'll have to deal with it all.....but I'll be dead so I can't worry then about it. Anyway, I still have a few plans to try out but I need to stop procrastinating and do it. If you can work on chat GPT to figure a way out for artists to get such an income, that would be so great! Big dreams like that with energy, patience, brains, heart, and balls may just make it happen!
OK Annette. I am on that project. In fact I think it is going to be the basis for Book #2 related to Creative Lifestyle. Watch for the first article in the morning.
I can't go that far, my wife is tolerant, but not that tolerant. I still use one bedroom for studio, another as an office, and another for storage. Too much in store really, I have the same problem of getting into a gallery.
I lived in my studio for a few years, and it was the most formative period of my art making thus far. I look back on it all the time—and aim towards that kind of freedom again.
I used to live like this with my whole wee house an art making space and it was the most satisfying way to live. I’m working my way back to that.
So very true such a privilege, large or small, that should be taken advantage of if and where possible
I love the passion you write about when describing your living/making art space. I live alone (with a dog) in a paid for house with 3 bedrooms. One room is my studio (the biggest of the 'bedrooms'), the middle one is a gallery space (with a bed so when my son visits he can sleep there) and then the medium one where I sleep. I have finished 153 pieces (sculpture/assemblage) and my finished work besides being in the middle room, has now taken over my dining-room table. I only use that table twice a year......to prepare my taxes on and Thanksgiving when family is over for dinner. I don't have a gallery and I'm running out of space to put finished pieces but I'll think of something. I love having my studio in my home so I can work there in the middle of the night when insomnia sticks around (almost every night). My house is looking like a museum with not only my art all over the place, but with all the vintage collectibles I own. I'm selling some to make more room for my art. Gotta create, right?
Very cool Annette! Turn your whole house into your museum/conservatory/staging gallery! If you are selling vintage collectibles why not sell some of your art the same way? Use other people's walls. In my case I always say; "The best storage is gallery storage." Get in a gallery.
"Get in a gallery" you state! Easier said than done to be cliche about it. Not an easy thing to do for me. I've tried but perhaps not hard enough. Not good at convincing a gallery to take me on and they have given me all sorts of reasons/excuses. But I won't give up. I have a few ideas still. I had it good when I was with New Gallery long ago. What I'd love to have is an agent; someone to work for me in getting me a gallery.
Just a random thought. Why not “loan” pieces to your friends to display in their houses so that you get a tiny bit of exposure for your work? Or loan a piece of art to your local restaurants or other local places of business? (Kind of like individuals loaning their piece of art to a museum for a specific period of time.). Have a little one sheet “bio” with your contact information that they can pull out. (My mother was an artist, and we have collected art from all over the world, so people always want a tour of our house even though nothing we have is for sale,)
We are vacationing in Maine and while on the road in this beautiful state and see “sandwich boards” in front of residential houses that advertise it is a studio. (This may be prohibited by your deed restrictions.)
Again, random thoughts on a Sunday morning in Portland, ME.
Thank you for your thoughts on my issue with displaying my art, Lynn. I appreciate it. These are good ideas if I did wall-hanging art, but I do sculptures/assemblages and while they are strong-in-created, there would be some fragility to some of the pieces and they'd need pedestals and I've even had pieces disturbed when in public spaces included in shows. I still have a few plans to work on to find a gallery but I am the queen of procrastination and while that's not an excuse, it's something I need to overcome. At 68 it gets harder to make myself do what I need to do. I like that quaint Maine sandwich boards thing but nowadays, I don't want strangers in my home as I feel somewhat vulnerable living alone.
Yeah, I think an agent could be a good idea (if you can find one) to get you in multiple galleries. Just put the prices high enough to cover all that. It is kind of like what they say about making a website. you can put all the work into it but if it doesn't get any traffic what's the point? Same with writing a book, you can write the book but then you have to go through all of the work of publishing and publicizing it.
Early on I realized I needed to work in the studio part of the time and then put on my Rep Hat and spend the rest of the time promoting the work. It is a double job. the whole cycle is getting the work from a nail on your wall to the nail on the collectors wall.
The best scenario is being financially well off enough to not worry about showing and selling it. But if you can't do that then you have to get to where you make the hustle into part of the art process.
My problem is I have to live from my efforts because I can't stand to go out and do something else for a living. We all need a 100,000 a year Basic Income allowance. Maybe some artist can do that as an art project, try to get a bill though congress to get all creatives a 100K basic income so we don't have to think about money. Maybe chat GPT can come of with that. I am going to try it...
I keep going back to my original reason for doing art........because I need to. And showing/selling it was down the list. I can afford to just make art and not sell it. But my poor kids; when I kick the bucket they'll have to deal with it all.....but I'll be dead so I can't worry then about it. Anyway, I still have a few plans to try out but I need to stop procrastinating and do it. If you can work on chat GPT to figure a way out for artists to get such an income, that would be so great! Big dreams like that with energy, patience, brains, heart, and balls may just make it happen!
OK Annette. I am on that project. In fact I think it is going to be the basis for Book #2 related to Creative Lifestyle. Watch for the first article in the morning.