In the Studio: Week 1

It’s surprising how quickly Friday rolled around this week. I feel like I am busier now, than I was when I was working full time. I managed to put in time at my studio everyday this week (and will head over there after this post), although I didn’t quite stick to my schedule. All told, I spent about 20 hours there this week. I am really hoping to increase that number to 25 or 30, but this is the most time I’ve spent in there consecutively so I am not disappointed. Also, there were a couple of design projects, writing projects, and some research that I completed on the boat.

I think the most important project that I worked on this week was my artist statement. To begin, I was nervous about writing it because, to be honest, I didn’t really know where I wanted to push my artwork, and I didn’t really understand what my art was telling me. Writing the artist statement was probably the best thing I could have done for myself, to give me focus and direction and also some great motivation. I spent several days writing notes to myself about why I enjoyed making art, why I chose to use certain materials, what I wanted to explore, and how my work was a reflection of me. I also looked at several Web articles (this one was probably the most helpful) on the topic and read about the topic in The Artist’s Guide by Jackie Battenfield. Battenfield’s guide was actually quite helpful because it included some strong examples of successful artist statements. After generating about two full pages of notes, I sat down at my computer and tried to make sense of it all. I am pleased with the outcome (which you can read on one of my About pages), and I feel confident about it even though it is still a work in progress.

In addition to the artist statement, I stretched and prepared a canvas for a new painting, sketched some studies of my subject, worked on a couple pages of my sketchbook, printed a shirt for a friend, emulsified a clean screen to burn today, created a t-shirt design for my first commissioned project, printed out some photographs to use for various studies, and hung a bunch of inspirational images in my studio. Not too bad for my first week.