You may recall that back in September I delightedly moved my printmaking operations to an out-of-house, dedicated studio. I really enjoyed having a space to go to that was entirely about making prints, but there were some less than ideal aspects to the situation. The first was that to get to Studio V required navigation of a long (26 steps and 2 landings) stairway, which meant I couldn't get things like my flat files up to the work space. (Presszilla* was out of the question.) Most of my reference books and sketchbooks and my drawing table also stayed home (where I continued to work on illustration projects)... so "poking around" developing new prints couldn't really happen at Studio V. I had to arrive at the studio with a plan, and once the plan was accomplished, head back home again. Finished prints had to be carried home to store... Not so efficient.
There were other details that weren't working out, either (let's just say the building didn't have the right vibe), so in the end I decided to bring everything back to the home studio. The challenge was to figure out how to integrate the new door-turned-workbench into the old space! After much headscratching and some judicious rearranging space was made and last week the workbench and Elvis came back home.
Things are pretty cramped in here, but I'm delighted to discover that the time spent working elsewhere help me develop a new system for working here. The priorities for this space have changed... An 80-inch-long workbench demands that the bulk of the room is now focused on printmaking, but there's still just enough space for illustration and design and the administrative tasks that have to be done here. I'd still like to have a dedicated studio that's not in the house, but it needs to be the right space. The greatest thing about the last few months in Studio V is that I learned more about what the right space should be.
I've already done some printing here, tweaking the space as I go. You can see in the image above that there's something big happening, but I'm not ready to share it just yet. I did pull a number of just-for-fun prints that I'll post later this week... There's a little celebration about to happen!
(*Presszilla still isn't here, but I think we've worked out a plan for her that will benefit more than just me. Details as they become available.)
Space looks very functional and streamlined. Love the door converted to table. Did you post instructions on how to make this? I'm also drooling over your big roller - a Takach?
ReplyDeleteLynn
Hi Lynn... The door is just set on two sawhorses. Eventually I'm going to run a board between them under the table to create another shelf. Just haven't gotten to it yet. The roller, sadly, isn't mine. It's a loaner from a friend and it's going back next week. Ah, well....
ReplyDelete