The 105th 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.
Rebecca Chaperon, Vancouver, Canada (site)
This has been my art studio since 2011. On the left you can see recent works and text pieces as well as my wavy rainbow sculpture made out of solid wood. The black shelves house small pieces and a stack of pink books.
At the time that I moved into this space I needed a very long wall because I was working on a 10-painting polyptych called “Great Black Fire” that was 3 feet in height and stretched 26 foot long.
On my desk you can see new works on paper (my crystal paintings) that have been laid out on a long bench in preparation for documenting.
Marsha McDonald, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (site)
My studio is on the second floor of my small old house. The porch overlooks my rather overgrown garden, the street, and offers a glimpse of an urban river a block away. There is light and darkness from the bank of windows which faces north and east. I work in a variety of media simultaneously — on the floor, tables, the small walls, the door easel. I make online work and video on a table in the adjoining kitchen. My bedroom is next to this room. I can work here or just look at it when sleepless. It’s important to me to live with the work, as you would a garden or library. For being in the center of downtown Milwaukee, it’s actually a quiet space.
Sometimes at night I hear owls, even an occasional fox. Once a deer walked down the alley, which you could see from the porch
Aitor Lajarin, Los Angeles, California (site)
My studio is the garage attached to my house in Highland Park, North East Los Angeles. It’s small but I have managed to produce full large scale shows in this tiny space. I like that I don’t have to drive to get to my studio. I can be there 2 minutes after jumping from bed. When I am working, the doors are always open. Sometimes the neighbors stop for a minute and say hi, sometimes we have a beer or a cone from the ice cream truck.
Zoia Skoropadenko, Loire Valley, France (site)
This is my summer studio where I come to work on my large scale paintings and sculptures of torsos. Every day I work here on my paintings. As most of them are in series, I work simultaneously on several paintings. I have about 8–10 easels and lots of trolleys with different media. As you can see, the wonderful Renaissance ceiling of this ancient chateau gives me a great space to work on a large scale. I work here on lots of paintings that are about 3–4 meters. I also very much enjoy a fireplace which gives me a wonderful inspirations and heat when summer is enough cold and rainy.
Right now experimenting with egg tempera and you can see lots of pots with pigments on the trolleys. The fresh paintings I hang on the walls to dry and display. Even though the room seems a bit messy, it was made on purpose to show you a bit my materials I am working with. All trolleys and tables have wheels and I can easily move them around to have space or the materials I need. I occupy several rooms in this historical building dating back to 11 century. Each room is used for different art practices: one for engravings, one for sculpture, one for mosaics and one for kintsugi and restoration work.
Luca Molnar, Winston-Salem, North Carolina (site)
My current studio is housed in an old boarding house. There are sixteen studios in our walk-up building, plus communal classroom, kitchen, and outdoor space. This set-up, coupled with the din from the restaurant housed directly below my studio, keeps me from becoming a total hermit.
I work on a variety of surfaces. I use my smaller paintings, often on paper and wood, to work through ideas, experiment with new techniques, and generate color relationships for larger pieces.
A key component of my practice is looking. I use stools, chairs, ladders, windowsills, desks, and anything else I can perch on to give me distance and perspective as I figure out what a painting needs. I end each day by cleaning my palette, tidying up, and clearing off my bulletin board, so I can start the next one with fresh eyes.
The back half of my studio houses my “office,” where I respond to emails, sketch, read, pack, and ship work to its new home.
