A View from the Easel

CHICAGO — The 65th installment of a series in which artists send in a photo and a description of their workspace. Want to take part? Submit your studio — just check out the submission guidelines.

Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, Brisbane, Australia (site)

My studio is a double garage under my old highset suburban Brisbane home. Over the years my studio space has been ‘invaded’ by all sorts of things, as you can see in the photograph: bikes, packing cases, and old furniture. Despite this I love working in my studio especially with the garage doors up. I look out onto a lovely park and the southern aspect provides a relatively even light source all day. In winter it gets a bit cold! I rug up by putting on old paint splattered track suit pants and jumpers over my ‘good gear.’ I do this so I can quickly remove them and be ready to go out to collect children from school, etc. In summer it gets very hot, but I open up the whole house and breezes keep me cool.

My studio is next to my office, so I bounce between them all day. When I start a painting I splash paint and turps onto a canvas which is either upright on my easel or lying flat on the ground. Thus, the concrete floor is covered with paint. Leaves blow in too. Small lizards often visit, but so far no snakes, thankfully! My paints, turps, oil and brushes are kept close to my easel, very untidily on an old traymobile, stove, and clothes dryer!

You can see the full bin behind my easel. It’s full of the recycled plastic containers I use for paints and turps. On the right there’s a glimpse of stacked and covered paintings, a wooden packing case and packing materials such as whitegoods’ cardboard boxes. I keep my camera tripod handy so I can take photographs of finished and work-in-progress paintings. I have been painting for most of my life and I spend a lot of time in my studio, normally painting most days. I love that because it’s a garage I am not concerned about making a mess, as you can see.

Mike Dominick, New York City (site)

Like most NYC studios mine is small and weighs in at about 365 sq. ft., so almost everything is within arm’s reach. Even though I still cling to the moniker of sculptor I have been working on a series of paintings made with molten iron as a medium for mark making. This is where I make the fire retardant painting surfaces, paint with pigment sticks, apply collage elements and gold leaf, put on the basic finishing touches with a propane torch and store supplies for melting iron. My iron furnace can be seen in the back and I fire that little monster up outside. I try to put as many things as possible on wheels so I can move things around as I need to for the task at hand.

Virtually all the paintings that haven’t been sold are hung salon style on my walls. I share it with no one and when I close the door behind me the universe changes and it’s all creative energy. I love it!

Crisley McCarson, Savannah, Georgia (site)

I moved to Savannah four years ago from the Washington, DC, metro area. After 25 years in the same studio, finding a space and rebuilding a studio from scratch took a bit of doing. My studio is in an annex to a church. The building was a school but now has a day care on the 1st floor, musicians on the 2nd, and artists on the 3rd floor. I have the corner classroom, #307, that was originally meant for a junior high class. Two of the four walls have large windows. This is the first time I have had windows or natural light. There is no blackboard, but the rail for holding chalk is still here.

I like putting my work up on the wall: completed pieces, drawings from a weekly life drawing session, and occasionally a piece from a workshop. I use this as a reference for my progress and to get new ideas. I take lots of photographs that I put on the computer. I cull through the images to find one I want to paint. After many years of working with acrylics and abstraction, I am now painting with oils and focusing on portraiture, the figure, and landscapes. Each day I put on my iTunes playlist, pull up my photo and try to make the magic happen.

Brian Phillips, Austin, Texas (site)

I work with salvaged wood. My studio is a 20 foot shipping container that I bought and converted into my art studio with salvaged items. The front space near the cargo doors is my wood workshop and the back room with the window is my fully insulated painting room. I felt it necessary to do the build out with salvaged items because I feel we are too wasteful in today’s world. It also gives me a good work energy when I’m inside of my studio and I feel it helps me remember to continue to find new ways to repurpose salvaged items in my future work. With a little imagination, we can accomplish a lot with the items at hand.

Karen Anne Glick, Carlisle, Pennsylvania (site)

My studio is on the third (top) floor of our 1831 townhouse. When I claimed the space as my own, I exposed a bit of the brick wall and painted everything else white. The photo shows my sewing area where I can look out the window while I sew, my iMac and printer, my work tables, and the AeroPilates machine I use when I need to think about what to do next on a project. It works every time.