January 22, 2016

Does the Size of Your Studio Matter?


How important is the size and design of a studio to the creation of art and the development of the artist? I’d have to say it is a key factor in both. If you make your art in your bedroom or some other small room in your house that serves other needs or is shared with someone else, then the cramped space will have a direct effect on your work, forcing you to create small paintings or tiny sculptures. If you are able to afford a spacious studio with plenty of light, your work is more likely to be large and your ideas correspondingly expansive. Your work will probably expand to fit the space, and your vision will be enlarged in the process. When I returned to painting at the age of 56, after a divorce, I had a one-bedroom apartment and set up my studio in the kitchen, the only room in the apartment that didn’t have carpets on the floor.  Later on, after moving to San Miguel, I was able to rent a 3-bedroom house and use one of the rooms as a studio. However, this is not my ideal, and I am still hoping to have a very large studio someday, a realistic possibility since rents in San Miguel are dirt cheap compared to New York City, London, Paris, or Rome. 

An article by Raphael Minder in the New York Times about a replica of Miro’s studio makes the same point. Minder writes that when Miro moved into a big studio in Mallorca, after "painting in cubicles in Paris," his work changed dramatically -- it became larger, more expressive and free flowing. He was able to place canvases on the floor and splash paint onto them.