This Plague of Paint

studiowindow
View of my studio, looking north

Friend and artist Pam Farrell has invited artists to do a show and tell on her blog. Calling her project Interactive Studio Blog Post–ISBP–Pam now has nearly 10 artists who have participated. Their postings typically feature a work or body of work and an image of their studio.

Pam included some salient quotes from James Elkins about studios and workspaces:

In “What Painting Is”, James Elkins includes a chapter entitled “The Studio as a Kind of Psychosis”.

Working in a studio means leaving the clean world of normal life and moving into a shadowy domain where everything bears the marks of the singular obsession.

Elkins talks about the artists’ studio in terms of the alchemy of art making:

Alchemy is the best model for this plague of paint, for the self-imprisonment of the studio and for the allure of insanity.

For those of you interested in behind-the-scenes art making, it is definitely worth a visit. And for anyone who is a maker who would like to open their own kimono a bit, you can contact Pam directly.

P Farrell Artblog

5 Replies to “This Plague of Paint”

  1. Your studio looks very much like the one in my recurrent dreams, during my painting years, which are starting to tug at me again. I have interviewed many visual artists and one theme that came up a lot was one’s studio as one’s artistic self, a container that transforms the person into an artist, a kind of extension of self. I may not be explaining it well after all these years, but especially women who had mothering roles felt that they had a parent identity in the house and their artist identity was kept in the studio. Does that make sense?

  2. QS, of course. Part of what I have found compelling in Pam’s project has been these very issues. I can’t begin to describe how primal my connection is to the place of making. Do writers feel this way about a desk, an area designated? I share an intimacy with the space that is almost unworldly. I’m flattered that my space correlates to something in your dreams.

  3. I think some writers do, the whole Room of One’s own, but I believe for most writers it’s portable. I think it’s because art is a concrete object in space, so the space that contains it matters. Writing is abstract ideas floating in the brain. The brain is portable.

  4. I just wanted to comment that your studio is so serene. I love the glass on the windowsill and the found objects from nature.

  5. Thanks ybonesy. It does have a serene quality to it and one that I find I need when I am working.

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