Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Studio Productivity


Today I am basically transferring my enamel studio from one location to another hoping that in the new location I will be able to get more work accomplished. I don't know if this will actually work out, and I have no idea if I will remember all of the variety of items that I need to make sure come over with me, but I have to try. If I am going to be successful with oil painting enamel pieces, I have to be able to work for longer periods of time than the one hour that I get in an average morning session. So, today I will put my kiln and all of my enamels into the car trunk (that's the boot for all of my British friends) and bring them home to my smaller and very secondary studio. I only hope this won't be a disasterous move, and I don't anticipate that this will be the location for longer than the month of December because I simply don't have the space to set up my enamel studio in my home at this time. - there is never enough room. Maybe I should quit some of my craft/hobbies?


Currently the crafts that I practice regularly are:

Goldsmith/metalsmith - this is not at home - no room in my house for the equipment. I will include Metal Clay and Bronze Clay in this category, even though the area I work on the clays is actually the home studio space

Enamelwork - combines with the metalsmithing, but a bit more portable

Etching/electroforming/resin enamelwork - this is a home studio item

Miniature painting - I love doing it, have enough backlog for many years, and have found that this particular hobby has helped me out in my other artistic endeavors more than I would ever have believed. This is a home hobby, but since I have an 8-level stand for my paints, it doesn't take up a lot of space except for the actually miniatures that I paint (I focus on 28mm cast pewter miniatures and pewter dragons)

Beading - one of my oldest crafts since I've been doing this on and off for more than 45 years. I'm good at it. I've taught it, I've written articles on it, and I still usually have the ability to push out a quick project if necessary. But I've been there - I've done it, and I don't feel that I need to continue to be 100% productive in this hobby any more. I have a lot of supplies and it takes up a lot of space, but my DH's wonderful design allows me to maximize the utilization of the space that I have. Since this is portable, I can carry it with me to work on in any convenient location.

I think I'll continue this list tomorrow - seems that I do more than I originally thought - LOL. (The pictures of my home studio are old - it is arranged a bit differently right now. But it still will give you an idea of the wonderful set-up that my DH built for my birthday several years ago. It's an awesome storage/work system.)

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