In the Artist’s Studio – A Photo Essay – Art and Cake

My studio day begins post “civilian” duties (walking my pug Viola, breaking the fast, some sort of exercise …), arriving to my studio around 9 or 10 am most days. My studio is in of itself an oddity, it is on the 10th floor of a professional office building, a suite of rooms I share with my psychoanalyst husband David. We, and the patients , think the marriage art and analysis a perfect fit, especially as my work is symbolically Jungian. We both work late, generally leaving the office at 9pm; David seeing patients, myself at the work table. I am frequently, when in the studio, in a cloud, whimsically referring to my studio aerie as my ivory tower. There is from my perspective a fairy tale element to art making , working in near complete isolation , spending long, arduous hours, drawing, painting or stitching work that is completely unbidden, unsought; seeking that alchemical miracle of dross to gold. One at some point might question the logic of such fanciful endeavors, but I can imagine no other path more gratifying or enlightening; it is my psychotherapy. I rarely work on more than one project at a time, aside from a daily drawing practice, my focus is pretty myopic. I’ve admired artists able to jump about but I haven’t that temperament. I am fortunate to have studio work as my primary occupation, after twenty five years as a commissioned decorative painter, I retired and turned my attentions to studio work. Decorative work was a straightforward endeavor, I faced a task at hand, a commission from an interior designer with his or her own vision, in which , with the spirit of collaboration, creativity, art history and project budget , I created a product, one I like to believe was artistic, but nonetheless transactional. With my studio work I set out to please no one but myself, I do not consider the response my work will receive . I simply make, satisfying my vision, crafting my world. In fact, for all of my preparatory pondering, once pencil is in hand, my frequently harsh super ego exits the studio.