I like Studio Friday because it’s a peak into other artist’s studios. This week’s project was to show “three of a kind.” Oddly, almost everything around my desk comes it twos or fours or singles. And I sat stumped for a long time before I realized my desk, a second-hand goody inherited from a deceased friend of my husband’s parents, has three deep drawers. I replaced the handles when I got it—the old ones were gaudy and ornate. And it suits me fine.
This is my studio: Along one side of the dining room in our small apartment. Red walls. My desk is nestled below a built-in china cabinet with old leaded-glass doors. I keep them open, and use packing tape to affix notes and quotes, to-do lists and receipts to the glass. Into the latch hole I have stuck two drying maple leaves—the first that I picked up this season, fallen to the sidewalk, vermilion and gold.
I use the shelves in the china hutch for books. I stack my books both ways: spines facing up, and horizontally. And in front of them, mugs and jars with brushes, pencils, pens. An orchid my husband gave me on my birthday, no longer flowering, but still with waxy oblong leaves sits on my desk.
Everywhere, heaps of papers, books, magazines, paints. They spread out in circles around me, like the rings in water after a pebble has been thrown in. I am at the epicenter.
Things I keep within reach: my laptop, my camera (A Nikon CoolPix5000, Jillian, since you once asked), a bar chocolate (this yummy raspberry kind by Lake Champlain Chocolates), my favorite volumes of poetry (The Rag And Bone Shop of the Heart, edited by Robert Bly, Inland, by Pamela Alexander, A Tree Within, by Octavio Paz, and The Complete Poems of e.e. cummings) a bouquet of dried roses from my wedding, and my address book (a Metropolitan Museum of Art item, with irises on the cover).
Things I keep in my desk drawers: Lots of stationary boxes—now filled with scraps, pencils, magnetic poetry bits, glue, staples. A small metal wind-up toy. Silver embossing powder. Thumb tacks. Quarters. Packing tape. Bank statements. Vintage postcards, sparkly ribbon, thread. An old wallet. Burt’s Bees raspberry lip balm. Sharpies.
Since starting this, it has begun to rain out. Hard pebbles of rain falling against the open screens. The night air comes in cool. Tomorrow I will paint I think. Tonight I try to paint with words.
Thanks for the tour through your desk drawers… lots of goodies. your art space sounds great — i look forward to seeing more glimpses of it!
Its cool to here about your spot.
I love your writing so much because I feel like I hardly know the outer you, but I know your mind so well.
See — you *can* have a studio in a shoebox!
How beautiful!
Oh lovely loveliness. You paint beautifully with words. I want to live in that top desk drawer with a stationary box for a bed.
Nice pic of a beautiful drawer, and thanks for sharing the story of your studio, it’s inspiring and makes me really curious about the rest. Hope you’ll share more soon!
take care!
Gorgeous trio, Chrsitina!! The wood looks so beautiful! So funny that you had a tough time finding a three of a kind, that is amazing! Your studio sounds like a gorgeous space, so inspiring!
I, too am curious about the rest of your studio now…
I agree with Lucinda. And, this is funny, I misread the 5th paragraph at first and thought you said you keep ME within reach and I felt all warm-fuzzy inside…until of course I read the part accurately
I commented on petithiboux a few days ago about this. I love being able to picture someone in their own space. She posted pics of her desk at work, the inside of her purse, etc, and like your post today I feel like I get tiny peeks every so often into the lives of people that I find fascinating. Thanks!