Making Space for Making Art

Why don't you take over the shed — make it your art studio?  

That conversation was back in August — one evening, sitting outside with friends who, along with my husband, were spitballing ideas for a larger studio space for me.

I was chomping at the bit. The space upstairs under the eaves, which has been my art space for the last few years, felt cramped. My easel, too tall to fit inside, stood on the tiny landing next to the washer and dryer.

On the other hand, the shed at the back of the garden is big — 24' wide by 20' deep. And it's tall — we're talking 9-foot ceilings.

It's structurally sound, too. Over the years, we've repaired the roof, poured a floor, replaced rotten wood, and swapped out doors and windows. The shed housed our garden supplies, bicycles, lawn furniture during the winter, and Neil's tools and tinkering workshop year-round. It's been the overflow space that made the rest of our small house functional.

The shed conversion began with enlisting the maker for our maker space-to-be—my brother, Ray. He's a contractor. He knows things.

First, we defined the parameters: 14' x 20' for Caroline's studio and 10' x 20' for Neil's workshop. Sounded fair to me.

Almost immediately after that, the clearing out of the shed began. And by clearing out, I mean the grungy labor of sweeping out years of sawdust from Neil's woodworking projects — and deciding about every little thing in there. Is this a keeper? Where the hell do we put it now?

I'm vacuuming with the shop vac again today. More spiders. Made a run to the hazardous waste disposal to get rid of paint we've been keeping for years. What do we do with this old mailbox? Buy Nothing Bainbridge and another run to Goodwill. More sweeping.

A month later, in the middle of September, Ray was back to begin.

I love the way my brother works. Together, we imagine function, flow, lighting, and storage. He draws on the floor so that we can see the space. On his phone, he scrolls through Lowe's and Home Depot sites for materials and fixtures. He brings a couple of windows, and we hold them up against the wall. We pivot and iterate easily.

Neil and I have jobs, too. We make lunch daily, and on weekends, we sweep or wrap rafters.

Ray finished the painting last week. At this very moment, he's installing the backsplash for the sink, the toe kick under the cabinets, and the outdoor lights. The last bits and pieces for my studio space.

Neil moved into his workshop space two days ago and began his first project — making a base with wheels for my flat file (a mid-century wooden beauty-to-be for which we crossed Puget Sound and drove four hours roundtrip). I may be ready to set up the art studio as early as next week. 

But it was last night that we both simultaneously felt our reality had shifted. Having just returned home from a few delightful hours of Drinking & Drawing at the Alehouse, we decided to visit the shed before bed. It was dark and spitting rain. We opened the door to my studio and flicked on the banks of lights, one by one. The place lit up like a NASA warehouse. We wandered into Neil's workshop, where I learned about the power of glue and the wheels on order for the flat file project.

We turned around and around again in our spaces. I walked to each corner and admired the view. No spiders. 

A closer look:   

Our shed is infamous among Islanders of a certain age. It was a landmark in the 1970s when high schoolers would hang out there to smoke. The owners before us had beaten back the brambles and rescued the shed from certain demise. We continued its rejuvenation. Here are pictures of the shed in its early days with us.

My rule is that a blog post must include new drawings. Here are a few, including from last night's Drink & Draw.