Welcome to the 270th installment of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, artists make sacrifices for their love of Sharpies and grow crystal on the windowsill.
Want to take part? Check out our submission guidelines and share a bit about your studio with us through this form! All mediums and workspaces are welcome, including your home studio.
How long have you been working in this space?
Around a year and a half.
Describe an average day in your studio.
Usually, my working times are the bookends of my day, since I work a full-time job at a large supermarket chain. I usually wake up around 6am to do some reading, light drawing, and erasing. I draw a daily comic, so the mornings are usually spent cleaning up the comic from the night before and putting it on Patreon. If it’s a day off from the grocery store, I will do extra reading and drawing, since I am always working on something else besides the dailies. After work, I come straight home and start on the daily comic. I use an 11-by-14 drawing pad, a 6H pencil, and fine-point Sharpies, and I have a self-imposed rule of no more than four panels per comic. I use the daily comics both as a way to practice my craft and to remember my humanity, my personhood. Recently, I have been listening to the Vermont Public Classical radio station or the Stardew Valley soundtrack while working — something calming, but not so sonically interesting that it will distract me from drawing.
How does the space affect your work?
Since the space is just the second bedroom in my and my wife’s apartment, I have the size constraints of what will fit on my desk, whether that is a comic or drawing. I also have to account for how many of my comics can fit into the space. I cannot draw if piles of different comics take up my desk, so I have been tinkering with following through with all of my ideas without taking up as much space — for example, trying to work in short-story anthologies instead of various one-offs.
How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?
The community around me helps create the comics as much as I do. Working in analog comics-making, instead of digital, I am able to share physical mini-comics with my community wherever I go (work, local comic shop, gas station, etc.). I frequently depict my friends and other community members (with consent) in the comics, so being able to showcase physical works to them has helped foster stronger bonds with those around me. Vermont, and especially Burlington, to which I have ample access, is a sneakily good comics hub, with cartoonists existing both in the city and on the outskirts. I can share my work with both well-known cartoonists and community members who know nothing about cartooning. I get great feedback and connection from both. Vermont and Vermonters help shape the comics, and it is difficult to disregard the physical place and people I am surrounded by. I am also a member artist at the S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington, which allows me ample opportunities to connect with other artists in the area and pursue collaborative projects, comics or not.
What do you love about your studio?
I enjoy having my studio in my apartment. Much of the time, I have to be convinced to leave, so having my work space three feet from my bedroom has been a comfort. We also have turned our apartment into a de facto art gallery, filling the space with artworks by our friends and local artists. To be able to look at our walls and surfaces and see prints, collages, sculptures, comics, and pottery made by people we know is more inspiring than words can describe.
What do you wish were different?
I wish I had more storage space.
What is your favorite local museum?
Besides the S.P.A.C.E Gallery, which is a given, my wife and I love visiting the Middlebury College Museum of Art. The museum staff always makes our visits worthwhile, and given its size the breadth of work they have is admirable.
What is your favorite art material to work with?
I am a sucker for a good Sharpie. I use fine-point Sharpies to ink the comics, but I always find ways to use the king-size Sharpie if I can. My lifespan might shrink by a few years because of them, but I am at peace with that fact.
How long have you been working in this space?
Five years.
Describe an average day in your studio.
My studio is in my home, and on a perfect studio weekday I get up around 5:30am and spend an hour or two on correspondence before I wake up the kids to get ready for school. After dropping them off, I work straight through the end of the day, multitasking between sculpture and digital work, working on proposals or public art projects, writing, or reading up on new techniques to experiment with. A curator or fellow artist might come by for a studio visit and we have a leisurely lunch together. When the kids come home, I transition to working side by side, with them drawing, painting, or working on the sewing machine. My partner takes care of bedtime for the kids, so I get a couple of solo studio hours in at the end of the day, too.
How does the space affect your work?
I have always been in combined live/work spaces. I love the opportunity to work in the early morning or late into the evening without commuting. Because my studio is integrated with my kitchen and living areas, I can be extremely productive. A magical moment for me might be when both 3D printers are running, glass is in the kiln, a bio-art or crystal experiment is set up and growing on the windowsill, the computer is finishing a render, a meal for my family is in the oven, the washing machine and dishwasher is running, and I sit down at the piano or sewing machine.
How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?
Santa Fe has an amazing international art community, and Taos to the north and the more populous city of Albuquerque to the south extend that even more. I am a part of a group of artists who work at the intersection of art and science. We get together at least once every month and show together. I am also part of the local glass and ceramics artist communities, whom I see at least a couple of times a week. I am very lucky to be connected to a group of artists who are also parents of young children.
What do you love about your studio?
In addition to the light and the view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, I love that I can be here with my family, we can create together, and what we create can exist side by side. For hundreds — maybe thousands — of years in this region, families have been creating together. Being here encourages that as a way of life which is really important to me.
What do you wish were different?
Like every artist, I dream of more space. Sometimes I get obsessive and draw up plans for an addition with a garage entry, more space with higher ceilings to set up works, and an attached greenhouse.
What is your favorite local museum?
The railyard area of Santa Fe has a lot to offer. SITE Santa Fe is my longtime favorite contemporary museum, and now the railyard has a new one, Vladem Contemporary. I also love CONTAINER. It’s an unusual exhibition space made of shipping containers that hosts provocative and challenging solo exhibitions, which I love.
What is your favorite art material to work with?
I am a total materials science geek and love researching and playing around with the chemistry of glass, ceramics and glazes, and bio-based materials. I especially love learning about and working with minerals in the earth formed by life over millions of years, and with life in the earth that is constantly growing and transforming.
