An Artist's Workshop

Work has begun

When we bought this house, I was all excited because there were two workshops, a detached and attached garage, a shed as part of the big ‘shop, and a random hot tub enclosure. I thought, at the time, we would wind up with a workshop for my husband, one for my son, and a garden shed. The hot tub was non-functional, but still…

Three years later the son was no longer living at home, the husband was no longer physically able to work in a ‘shop or use the hot tub even if we had replaced it, and it was time for me to decide how to cope with the space and storage potentials. We are in a very strange-feeling place of having more storage than we need or are currently using, which is nice. However, I was beginning to badly need more space for my creative work, as the art studio inside wasn’t the best place to do things I want to do like making my own paper, inks, and paints.

Art studio, Toast for scale. Writing desk, drafting desk, and storage.

More storage, the art bookshelves, yes Toast I will pat you now, and a walking desk I tend to use for research.

With that motivation, as well as the sad feeling of the never-used workshop attached to the garage, which should have been my husband’s domain, I decided to reclaim another part of my home. I don’t know if it’s my Oddness, or if this is a common thing? But there are parts of my house that don’t necessarily feel like they are ‘mine’ if that makes sense. The room which had been my son’s room, and became the studio/guest bedroom, took me a lot of time to feel comfortable walking into, sitting down, and getting to work. In my head it was firmly ‘son’s room’ and we respected his space, never entering without permission. Even when it had been emptied to the walls and cleaned, it took my brain time to get comfortable with wandering in, coffee in hand, and not feeling intrusive. I had to work at it.

The little workshop was like that, but more so. For one thing, it had been a sort of dumping ground since we’d moved into the house, as it was never kitted fully as a workspace. My son’s shop (and that’s another huge project for this fall) was.

Where it started, some of this is even crap left in the ‘shop when the old owners vacated.

Back in August, I decided I really wanted to get some projects done before September… which didn’t happen. But I did start on the task of clearing the little workshop to see if I could use it for things like boiling down inks, which my husband would really prefer I not do on the kitchen stove!

Staring to get a vision for this space.

So many spiders. So many. Since I have identified brown recluse spiders twice on our property (they are often misidentified, but I’m certain of two!) I really wanted to clean and clean again once all the loose stuff was out. I also wanted to paint all the old brown wood. I wanted to paint the workbench. I wanted… it was too dang hot. I ran out of steam, could only work in the ‘shop in the very early morning before it rose above ninety out there, and had the big Convention in September. I put working on the shop on the back burner.

It’s finally getting cool enough to work out there when I have time, which I did this afternoon. I realized that planning to paint everything was far more ambitious than I was going to have time or energy for. I went ahead, cleaned it again, put up the LED shop lights, and started to put tools up where I can see them. This will inevitably be fluid until I’ve worked a while in the ‘shop and figured out where I want them to be easily accessible. My husband is very happy because any tools he wants for minor house repairs and what-not are going to be easy to find.

The shop lights made all the difference. Now that it’s not so dim and forbidding, I don’t feel like I need to paint all the walls white and the workbench something light-colored to be able to work in here. Light means I can see what I’m doing, and where I need to clean, and if there’s something scuttling before I put my hand there…

I’m already to the point where I can start gathering tools and supplies to begin with the paper project, and I have to start inks because I have some ingredients on hand which will spoil! I’ll be using this as my ‘stalled on writing’ alternative in the upcoming weeks. I expect to be able to use the ‘shop all winter, to some extent, except on the coldest days, as I have a heater I’ll be running in the garage for the citrus trees anyway. Summer is a very different story, and I’ll focus on indoor art and creative endeavours once the temps rise into the triple digits. There is no good way to cool this room. There’s no door between it and the garage! I’m contemplating hanging a curtain, or shower curtain, to cut down on dust transfer, but we shall see.

The last big pain point in the ‘shop is the old hot tub piping and stuff. We may have to call in an electrician, as it’s not clear what if any of the wiring is still live. There are copper water lines jutting up out of the floor, and although I don’t think there is water in them, I really don’t want to find out the hard way. One we manage to remove as much of this as we can, which may not be all of it, I plan to put up shelves there, and that will make plenty of storage for things like bags of paper-potential material like the grape leaves I gathered a couple of months ago now.

It may not be shiny and beautiful, but it is functional, and that is the important part. I have a lab! Finally! Muauaha… ahem. Yes. I have a place to boil the stinky pots, to splash about water, to fiddle with chemicals… the artist’s workshop. I have plans for this place.