Wayan's Studio
Sketches of my art studio and process; art 1999/9/6, notes 2007, by Wayan
I thought I'd sketch my work-space just for fun, and meditate a bit on how materials and space can either cause or solve artistic inhibitions.
My studio's a big room in a cooperative house in San Francisco--very much a live-work place. Below is half the room as seen from my bay window. It's set up as a series of separate workstations: computer art in the left corner, then a music/recording area, then a sculpture table; I'm reflected in a mirror in the back, past a housemate peering in the door. Out of the picture to the right are a painting area, an art-storage area, then my dressers and bed and bookshelves in the back right.
I do pretty near everything in this one room--eat, sleep, dream, make love, do yoga, read... and work.
True, it's a very big room, the biggest I've ever lived in. And it really makes a difference.
I like this multistation live-work arrangement: it lets me switch quickly from one medium to another when inspiration hits, and I can leave half-done work out! There's no way to moan "If only I could find the time" or "If only I had the space" or "If only I had the discipline to get out to my studio regularly!" It's all there, all the half-done (and half-baked) projects, staring at me, waiting for me to finish them... every day.
And funny though it sounds, I enjoy that.
I drew this particular sketch just before I started doing Planetocopia, or there'd be a couple of second-hand globes chewed up and bulldozed into new shapes and repainted on the bench too. At the moment there are three--and two more under it, waiting... and one in the guest room drying!
Doesn't it seem fractal? I focus on one small part of the creative chaos, and zooming in just reveals more detail, more little projects. The part reflects the whole; as above, so below.
The plant and the small figurine of a krelkin are my two guardian angels...
On screen? I'd just been to the Steinhart Aquarium and seen a strange, flat, dark, polka-dotted fish...
CONCLUSION(S)
Looking around this studio, at least the bits attracting me enough to draw, I see two trends:
Instead of pushing through my artistic barriers, I've been slipping quietly around them. In fact, I'm not at war with my inner critics these days. Much of the time I just notice what needs to be done, do it, then notice something new, do that... Not silent in my head, but no conflict. Just action and planning action. It's a flow state--bliss, really.
Just very active bliss.
--Chris Wayan
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