My easel and palette are in the “laundry room” of my new house. I’ve been working on a painting of the long hallway that leads to the front door of our shot gun Victorian.

My partner shares my “studio” space, which would have been the parlor, or dining room, before our home was divided into a duplex. I have a desk on one side of the room, facing the window. His easel and palette are on the opposite wall of the room, the wall that shares the door to the hallway. We have a pocket door that separates the “studio” from the “living room”. It is open most of the time, allowing us to converse while we work on our computers.

For some reason I am unable to think of any element of our new house without putting quotation marks around it. In fact, I kind of think of it as our new “house”. Our actual home feels like it exists elsewhere. As such, my studio doesn’t really exist here either. I’ve been thinking about the pluses and minuses of this.

In graduate school I had a studio. It had tall ceilings, ventilation, peers to interact with. It was place I could go to, close the door, and artistically brood. It was also a place I could leave, work and all.

After grad school, I rented a garage space, which had a handful of issues, but I liked it anyway. I could go there make work and go home. Again, leaving the work behind. For some reason I put this feature in the category of “plus”.

None of the spaces I work in right now are dedicated. Right now all rooms that I occupy in my life, bedroom, laundry room, studio, coffee shop, and classroom, have become my studio. When you think of it, this is kind of ideal. Sure, I don’t have the ability to close the door and artistically brood in the same way, but I now am on the path to integrating my work with my life.

Since my work is no longer isolated, it’s become more active and has steered towards being about my observations, as opposed to about a concept. I know this a direct result of me trying to understand a new city, but I know this new working environment is a contributing factor.

It’s unrealistic to think I can sustain this eagerness to understand my new home/city after it becomes old hat. My wish is to remember what it feels like to have this primal need to understand where I am, at the forefront of my mind. If I can engage and apply this feeling to my work in the future, it will help me remember why making things is instrumental to my experience.