Finding Space
By Kayla Skinner
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Part of being an artist is understanding, utilizing, and creating space. Space that considers a particular medium and notices how the artist works with said medium. Space that provides the necessary inspiration to guide and motivate an artist to build a cohesive body of work while staying sane in the process. Space an artist is comfortable with and considers as ‘home.’ Altogether, space is an essential tool for all people, and the inability to have an environment that pushes for and inspires creativity can stunt an artist’s work-home life and their pieces.
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I was assigned my first school painting project two weeks ago, an oil painting of a still-life created in my own home. Similarly to other university students, I share a home with a few roommates. This means that space is limited and not easy to claim (especially for three days). Since I did not want to inconvenience my roommates, I decided to set up my still-life objects in my room, and the only space I had to arrange my objects in my room was on my bed. Part of creating a still-life is having a space that remains stagnant and untouched until the painting is finished, but the only space I could utilize was on an object I use every day. And on top of this, I hadn’t even touched my oils paints at this point, but I could feel my paint already staining everything I owned. Space is vital for creation, for respect in work and respect for home, but I just did not have this divide around me.
Kayla Skinner
Finding Space
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, artists have had no other choice than to make work from home. MFA and BFA students had to abandon their university studios since universities all over the United States have locked their doors, art students have to dye fabric and paint canvases in their kitchens, and art instructors had to lower the workload for students who have nowhere to handle oil paint. All of humanity is struggling during this heartbreaking time, but how are artists handling their spaces? How can a space transform when blending their homes with their studios?
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While basking in the mess that is my studio and my home, I reached out to other artists to understand how they are handling this barrier, how their mental states have adapted in their spaces, and to see if they had any solutions on utilizing their homes in a 2-in-1 environment. Similarly to the issues I am facing, other artists are experiencing the same struggles in inspiration, creation, and space.
When I asked if any artist would be interested in sharing photos and/or statements regarding their thoughts on making work in their spaces during quarantine, an IU art student named Allie Dolz-Lane responded with:
“I just work on my bed because I have nowhere to go in this house because
it is not really ‘mine.’ It is my mom’s fiance’s. It also doesn’t have any of the creative and inspirational art that my spaces usually have. In other words, it’s uninspiring and doesn’t make for a productive creative space either!”
For Dolz-Lane, making work in her own space is a fundamental part of her creative process. Like other IU university students, she was forced out of a space she lived in for three years. A space she labeled as home and expected to return to. Dolz-Lane spent the spring semester abroad in Spain when this outbreak occurred and was sent to her home in South Bend when the quarantine was announced. When I asked her if she could provide any photos of her studio space while quarantined, she responded with “all of my stuff is in Bloomington in the basement of the house I used to live in.” Since she was not able to return to her home in Bloomington, her belongings are stuck over 200 miles away from her, and she will not be able to retrieve them anytime soon.
Dolz-Lane, however, has not given up art-making even though her resources are limited and her space is far from inspiring. While in her new bedroom, she has been utilizing all of the surface space given to her. Throughout the day, she journals and writes on her bed while storing her extra papers, pencils, and stamps on her wardrobe. To Dolz-Lane, space is valuable no matter how temporary it is. Even though her space is not her own, she is surrounding herself with her favorite collaging mediums while journaling about her thoughts.
As previously mentioned, space is fundamental for artists to grow in their work and in their careers. For IU art students like Dolz-Lane and myself, figuring out how to incorporate art into our personal spaces has been a difficult task. Half of the battle is finding space to work in, the other half is finding the motivation to start. Although we have each experienced a varying amount of difficulties concerning our art, we have both pressed on because we have to. By this, I mean that along with art being a part of our academic journey, it is also our emotional outlet. It is a reflection of who we are, and although we are stuck in small, temporary spaces, we are making these spaces work by creating throughout the day and cleaning up at night. We are using our desks, beds, dressers, and floors to hold tools and support our mediums. We are making temporary adjustments for hopefully a temporary period of our lives. Although these seem like simple solutions to a difficult problem, this is what has been working for us, and I hope with more time, we will be able to hear more testimonies about how artists are transforming, working, and living in their spaces. Until then, I hope this essay provides a voice and a comfort for other artists to know they are not alone in their journey in finding space.