A View From the Easel
“Piles to start a project, piles during a project, and piles of stuff after it is finished.”
Welcome to the 355th installment of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, husband-and-wife artist duo Hillerbrand and Magsamen build a spaceship in their backyard and relish the messiness of making.
Want to take part? Check out our submission guidelines and share a bit about your studio with us through this form! All mediums and workspaces are welcome, including your home studio.
Mary Magsamen and Stephan Hillerbrand, Houston, Texas
How long have you been working in this space?
Twenty years in our house. Ten years in the garage studio.
Describe an average day in your studio.
We've been working as a collaborative team for over 25 years. When we first moved to Houston, Texas, from New York, we felt like that Talking Heads song, "How did we get here?" We used our house as a studio. We tunneled through walls with chainsaws and sledgehammers, cut a hole in the wall, and built a three-and-a-half-story spaceship in our backyard. It finally got to be too much having our house in complete chaos. People kept asking us, "Can I come over and see what it looks like?" So we built a very simple wall down the middle of our garage and, of course, put an AC unit in it because it's Houston.
It's funny having this kind of space because we love it. It lets us be messy, keep things the way they are, and not have to clean up after ourselves. But sometimes it's also a little sad because, even though it's only 10 feet away, we miss our house being the studio. Our routine is always the same. Stephan works on a project in the morning, and then Mary works on it in the afternoon and evening. On weekends, we come together and get into wonderful debates and arguments about why something was changed or what we wanted to keep.
