A View from the Easel, Part 9

The paintings relate to my classical musical practice. In the foreground is a painting on the table receiving underpainting and pours of wax layers. In the corner are hot pots and my movable palette stacked with tubes of Old Holland, palette knives and brushes.

My studio is at the University of California, Irvine. I am in my last year of my MFA here, and when I leave I don’t know when I will have another studio. I am trying to make the most of this one. My practice is one that encompasses a lot of media and materials: wax busts, black velvet paintings, encaustic maps, resin fossils, silver-gelatin photographs, foam and plaster stalagmites and a lot of gold spray paint.

I always collect rugs for the studio. When I am exhausted and not ready for my hour and half commute back to LA, I lay on one of them and listen to one of the five Edith Piaf CDs my wife downloaded on the laptop. Most days you will find me buried in the middle of all my pieces, looking halfway between a crazed archaeologist at a swap meet and a guy that paints your car, hopefully with my respirator on, with gold fingertips, plaster-splattered jeans, ramen or hot-sauce splattered shirt and desert boots, trying to practice my own little humble form of alchemy.

Julia Kim Smith, Baltimore, Maryland (site)

This is my typical workspace. It currently has props from a recent project, “Miss DMZ”: a rhinestone tiara, a ridiculously extravagant pair of Alexander McQueen skull stilettos (I was so tempted to be bad and use them for the shoot and then return them to Zappos, but I was good), “Miss DMZ” sash and faux magnolias (a symbol of perseverance — and North Korea’s national flower). And prints from “100 Survivors,” an on-going, web-based photo project for women with breast cancer.

I am a conceptual artist and do most of my work on the computer. My typical workspace is where ever I happen to be with my laptop, though I love to work in my studio. It’s a big, minimalistic space with three tables from IKEA and few distractions. In my practice, I am a visual glutton and devour images by searching the web, traveling, visiting exhibitions and reading, a lot. I process all of it and somehow produce work that is minimalist. I am easily distracted by clutter and try to curate my clutter, if that makes sense.

Valerie Margolis, North Hampton, New Hampshire  (site)

My studio is an apartment of two smallish rooms over a garage, with terrific north and west views of a New Hampshire landscape. I ride my road bike up here on a trainer during the winter, with boom box blaring. My collaged paintings and wall sculptures begin on the floor — where they serve as a drop-cloth for one another — and eventually end up on the table or wall.

I have lots of stuff, including heaps of ripped old drawings that have been incorporated into a few series such as the Phylacteries, Bouquets and Epigrams (one is the bronze painting on the right). It’s a process that is both cannibalistic and regenerating.

Theresa Daddezio, Brooklyn, New York  (site)

This is my live/work space in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The building operates as one of the area’s longest functioning commercial and residential spaces. My studio is on the top floor, where massive industrial windows line the west side of the apartment, providing a panoramic view of Manhattan.

Part of my process involves dripping medium on top of my paintings in order to work wet on wet. I often rotate my canvas multiple times and work both on the floor and along the wall. This constant repositioning allows for the floor to take the place of a tabletop. The clear Plexiglas display case was salvaged from an art store and is used to store and organize my tubes of paint. My favorite aspect about working in this environment is the exposure to the sunset’s vibrant hues that have found their way into my palette.