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Top 10 ways to get into a creative groove:10. Sorting through supplies
9. Dreaming
8. Private time
7. Coffee -- even decaf works for some artists!
6. Observation of the world around -- especially nature
5. Blog surfing
4. Looking through art book and magazines
3. It just happens because the groove is always with me
2. Just Do it! Enter your art space and start!
1. Music!!
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According to The New York Times, the average Internet user in the United States spends more than three hours a day online. Much of this time is obviously spent on your can't live without sites!
Favorite Website#1 is Flickr
#2 is Etsy
This is the same result as was found in the previous survey!
Favorite BlogNot counting the votes for The Altered Page (thank you!!), the #1 blog is Nina Bagley's
Ornamental. Judy Wilkenfeld's
Red Velvet and eb's
Be...Dream...Play were close behind. And many people voted for their own site, which is completely understandable given the amount of time it takes to create and maintain a good blog!
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New Medium. So many techniques...so little time. When asked to share an art medium that each artist would like to explore, three techniques were clear winners. Note to instructors...these might be popular classes!
1. Encaustic. Many artists were attracted to the soft, mysterious, hazy, dreamlike, heavenly, nostalgic look of wax. And, as noted by at least one artist, it smells good too!
2. Metal. An equal number of artists wanted to try their hand at metalwork in the form of sculpture, welding, forging, assemblage, precious metal clay, silver, steel, raising & planishing, and casting in bronze.
3. Fabric and fiber. Many artists wanted to explore fabric in many different ways. Adding it to their current mixed media arsenal was popular, but so was using it in handmade books and clothing.
4. Other techniques/approaches/materials that were mentioned by at least 5 artists included jewelry making, digital manipulation, printmaking, drawing or sketching, painting with oils or watercolors, using clay, and working BIG!
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Style File.We are rewriting the history of art movements with the following schools:
Romantic Realist
Contemporary Surrealist
Archeology Ethnography
Creative Collision
Pinball Avant Guard
Controlled Chaos
Creatarian
Abstract Experimenting
Abstract Figurative
Techno Romantic
Expressionistic Minimalism
Bohemian Eclectic
Dirt Encrusted Darkness
The most popular descriptors include: eclectic, colourful, messy, evolving, whimsical, changing, experimental, intuitive, and organic.
As for the rest of us, we might be spare, impulsive, expressive, layered, motley, textural, deep, tender, edgy, raw, realistic, passionate, polychromic, emotive, connected, light, accessible, balanced, irreverent, cartoonish, tribal, surreal, vintage, playful, intense, architectural, diversified, fun, free, quirky, precise, open, honest, dark, twisted, primitive, instinctual. spontaneous, compulsive, minimal, thoughtful, unruly, narrative, abstract, metaphoric, evocative, and grungy!
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Collectors. As I expected from this question, we are a group where the majority has at least one collection that elicits passion and a tendency to hoard. In fact, many of the participating artists have multiple collections. While the items collected are as varied as our artistic styles, some themes emerged over and over again.
1. The most popular type of objects to collect, as
Teesha Moore calls them, are "odd little things." These also go by the names of metal parts, quirky stuff, door parts, ceramic bits, found objects, old things, bits of anything, junk, rusty bits and pieces, bits & bobs, and baubles.
2. Many of us collect different materials for ingredients in our art.
3. The single most popular item seems to be rocks and stones!
4. Nature calls. Many artists collect what
Debbie Mihalick calls nature's flotsam and jetsam ...bones, feathers, agate, crystal, fossils, nests, and even rock crabs (hmmmm...should those crabs be listed along with rocks and stones???).
5. Books are a popular item to collect. All kinds of books...handmade, art-related and non art-related, zines, magazines, and more.
6. Vintage and aged objects seemed to be coveted -- old letters, cabinet cards, vintage photographs, and things with an aged patina are just some examples.
6. Boxes and tins were also collected often. But that makes sense...there has to be somewhere to store all these collections!!!
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Studio Space.One thing for sure that this survey indicated: artist's can create ANYWHERE. Many people have a dedicated studio at a location outside their home. Many other artists have ingeniously carved out space somewhere in their homes. And every area counts...spare rooms, children's rooms, bedrooms, front rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, basements, attics, garages, sunrooms, patios, backyards, frontyards, under the stairs, and in the shower(!). Every surface is usable...the floor, a corner, the living room chair, the kitchen counter, a desk, the dining table, and everywhere in between. Some people work outside...in the woods, in the yard, at the park, in a bookstore, at a coffee shop. No matter where each artist works...magic happens.
Here you get a glimpse of the books on the wall in the restroom. It also shows some of the equipment on the tables down the middle of the MIDDLE section of the studio: Zyron, copy machine, coil binding machine, hot press, sewing machine. And you can glimpse Iris carts under the copy machine table... there are three which have collections of dice, dominoes, compasses, small boxes, encaustic supplies, and other supplies. On the wall outside the restroom is a bookcase for my graphic art book collection and clip art books.
Here is the art sink (significantly dirty and painty!), refrigerator, and microwave. Not visable next to the sink there is a toaster oven dedicated to clay. Nothing in this room is used for food consumption except the microwave and refrigerator. (Of course, my batch of walnut ink in in the frig door - hmm, hope no one drinks it. LOL. The tall, white folding table across from the sink is on rollers and is where I stand to do work when I need a large flat area.
Unfortunaltely, this area is where I've begun to stack two layers of furniture -- geeze, I hope I don't do that all the way around the studio! Yikes. This is my bin storage on rollers. I have rubber stamps and ephemera in these 21 bins. The popcorn cartons hold my decorative and handmade paper. to the left of the bins is an Iris cart with my most used rubber stamps and my heat guns.
Here is where you can see what's behind the bin storage . . .an entertainment center with some of my favorite jewelry-making and art books, my cd player, storage rack with my cheap acrylic paints, two shelves of old books to use in collage, and a glass front display case with my antique photo albums and a few art gifts. Behind the Iris cart is a cabinet where I keep a shredder, hot pots for encaustic, a light box, etc.
Deana Hager I have a work area set up in what we call "the stove room" (the room that houses our wood burning stove) BUT it really just "catches" things. I like to gather what supplies I need for a project and sit in the living room on my Lazy Boy reclining couch, put the foot rest up and do my thing. On a side table next to said Lazy Boy is my laptop computer. This is where I am online at all times. It makes it easier to multi task (watch tv, do art, play with my 3 year old...etc) Though my husband HATES this arrangement (he says he feels like he is married to a computer LOL or at least vying for its attention).
Karen Cole Being empty nesters, my husband and I have the run of the place, yet, I chose the smallest room in the house, that's not a bathroom. I prefer containment. It keeps me focused and somewhat more organized, just because I have to be. Problem is, I work in so many different mediums, I can only work in one at a time. Sometimes I end up at the kitchen table or on the floor. What you see in the photo is one of my little corners of the world. "An artists studio should be a small space because small rooms discipline the mind and large ones distract it". -Leonardo da Vinci.
We're currently in the midst of building our home (entirely by hand) which will have a private studio attached to it that will be accessible via the front porch and the second story bedroom balcony. It's tempting to put a fireman's pole in on the latter, though I'm not sure how practical that would be! I'm hoping by having the studio attached to the house, but not an actual room in it, I can somewhat contain The Neverending Sprawl of Supplies. One can dream, right? (one of the photos is of the outside of the house...where the ladder is is where the studio will be sometime soon!)
Ro Bruhn I'm very lucky I have quite a large studio that's part of the house. It's divided into three sections, my mosaic and heavy duty power tool section. My jewellery and painting area, then my textile, fabric and altered book section. Sometimes they all combine and become one big jumble, my husband refuses to enter without wearing a hard hat. My grandchildren enter and I have trouble finding them sometimes, just kidding.
Terry Rafferty My space right now is a very small room in the house, about 7x10 feet. What's great about it is that you learn to be efficient and have only what you really need at hand. I use a french easel that I can fold up and put away when necessary, and a rolling kitchen cart that I found in a junk store to hold my supplies. A plant stand with a lazy susan on top works for holding still life setups. Reference photos or drawings get taped to the wall. This room is also my clothes closet and the guest room, so sometimes finding a path to the easel is interesting...
Elizabeth Bunsen The magic happens anywhere and everywhere - but especially in the journal - I write and create 2 or 3 entries a day - first thing in the morning under the skylight on the round table covered with my rock collection... then walking - walking is where many an idea will take shape or envision its unfolding (and also dreaming)... then depending on the weather I go into the spacious town studio and make creative messes and/or take up my office hours at the beach and journal as I practice deep listening. I feel as if I am always "documenting" my life and experience - and this better describes what I do now more appropriately than "making art".
Bridgette Guerzon Mills I just made a huge move from Seattle to Chicago and am working on setting up my studio right now. It is a huge undertaking! I feel like I really must have everything just so and have everything organized. I just cannot create in chaos. And right now my studio is chaos. So instead of showing a picture of that, I am sharing a picture of a wall I had dedicated in my old studio as the "Art Wall". I was preparing for my first solo show and I used that wall to hang up pieces as I finished them. I had a very small studio space at the time and you can see the easel to the left, the art table to the right and a little easel on the table. I used every available space I had!
Gina Petterson I have a room that i never seem to be able to work in because it is so crowded, all of the little embellishments, books and paints want to speak at the same time. I will try and disconnect by going on line and hop back and forth between my desk and my chair until I can get a fix on the direction I want to go in. There are not too many altered artists here in Sweden, especially in my small area where I haven't met anyone yet.
Joanna Olson This room is an extension of my kitchen (I'd given up thinking I'd ever use it for actually eating out of. It's a lovely light room full of the things I love having around me. (I do anything that requires noise or the use of a torch in the basement). My computer is in the far corner and is where I start my day (after watching my design shows on cable TV, I'm only moderately ashamed to admit). As you can see the table in the foreground is my jewellery (Canadian spelling) worktable, smack dab in the middle of my easel and paint supply table which moves around the room depending on where the sun is (or isn't). Something I'm missing is a really good large table to put watercolor sheets onto. In that case I cover the dining room table and prep backgrounds and anything that requires broad sweeping brush strokes. Once the painting is underway and the work becomes tighter I can paint in this more restrained area. Larger works in oils or acrylics are not so much of a problem because they are upright in an easel. And then I enjoy baking too, my other creative outlet so this room really works for me.
Trudi Sissons I set up my garage studio beginning with a broken door set on two old trunks next to my family’s old dining room table, With the overhead door wide open, I have natural light and fresh air for 8 out of 12 months. I am almost always humming to music and bird watching. It’s almost packed to the rafters now. I dream of a larger studio with an enormous table, wide wooden planked floors, white washed open beams and floor to ceiling windows. I know it’s waiting for me.
Doreen Grozinger When my son moved out, I claimed his bedroom as my art room. I built him a platform bed which has conveniently become a large work space for me. I have one main area I sit at to work and try to keep it maintained, free of clutter, which is pretty challenging. The large table tends to be the collection area, with half-started, incomplete projects. I also have a meditation and journal area I work. Here I may pull an inspirational card, and journal or draw in my response to it.
