Once again, I’m pulling up stakes and moving my studio — but not too far this time, just across the room to a slightly larger space! I share a studio with two other people within a larger multi-studio cooperative called Xchanges, and one of our studio mates got a chance to move to a larger studio when another one built a studio in her home, which gave me the opportunity to grab a bit more room, and our new studio mate will move into my old space. I also have a home studio, a converted bedroom (at the cost of making our guests stay on the living room futon), which is where i do my comics and illustration work. But sometimes I want to get messy, or work on something bigger than I can do at home, or need a workshop with big noisy machines. So I maintain a space away from home too.

“Out of Chaos” – 16×16″ on canvas, 2009 — This is what my studio looks like in my head right now! Hopefully order will be restored soon.

I could go on about how cool it is to be around all those other artists, and the great vibes of the place, and I will sometime in another post, but today I just thought I’d ruminate a bit on moving. A studio is a very personal space, even when shared, and moving, even across the room, can be disorienting, but exciting too. It’s a chance to scope out new functionality and solve new problems — I couldn’t see where the heater and the plugs were until it was emptied, and then, guess what! All my plans of where I was going to put things went out the window! It’s a chance to get some exercise (hello, ladder!), and a chance for teamwork (hello ladder, meet hubby!).

I found myself wondering if I really needed all that stuff — and all of those old paintings I found while emptying and moving the cabinet that didn’t quite work and that now I feel like cutting up into coasters (I hate to waste stuff). I’d love to have a painting giveaway, but first, who’d take them, and second, I don’t want to walk into my friends’ houses and see these things hanging up! Arrgh! So after I get all the stuff moved so that our new studio mate can move in, I’m going to do some serious reflecting on what to do with this stuff. I predict that it will inspire some blog posts as I try to come up with ways to recycle old art.

In the meantime, I’m anticipating the most fun part of moving — the making of a new nest for art!

(A very big thanks to my husband Ron, who offered to come and help and then ended up doing most of the heavy work today because I have a sore paw. His cheerful energy got me through the hardest part of the move, which was disassembling my 8-foot tall, 6-foot wide, homemade, board-n-ladder shelves, moving them, and then reattaching them to the wall. I am one very grateful artist!)