Ten ways to artist studio heaven was a 34-year process for me. I aim to shorten that by a lot for you. No one should spend that much time finding “the one.”
Ever since the Dating Game debuted in 1965 hucksters assured us there were shortcuts to finding the perfect match. As a busy artist I have no time for games but finding the one right perfect space often felt like lots of fist dates. Many of which went on for years.
The artist studio heaven I found that should have been the one turned out to be a wrong number. That might have been my own fault. You can’t get to heaven if you haven’t yet rolled around some filthy floors and met a few unsavory characters and that takes time. Let me tell you more.
I’ve been an artist for over half my life. For most of that time I’ve needed a studio. I’ve always had work I wanted to do.That’s part of being a real artist, isn’t it? There’s a sense of legitimacy conferred by a studio. Why spend all that time, effort, money and heartbreak to pose as a character with so little cachet to begin with? Or maybe you become a real artist when you finally get your own space?
I abandoned measuring my authenticity quite a while ago. My creative side can’t not make stuff. What I didn’t know 40 years ago was how much I had to grow as a person to understand the sort of space my artist self most needed.
Huge, Cheap and Live-In?
My third studio should have been “the one.” In Bumble terms I skipped the first date, went straight to third base and headed for home with one swipe. Whoa, what a great match, I thought. Turns out there were issues: baggage, exes, sewer smells.
Laurie Graff wrote a book called “You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs.” and another one, “Looking for Mr. Goodfrog.” The titles say it all. Her books are brimming with tales of good dates that turned into not much. I had a similar experience with studios. I signed a lot of leases, schlepped a lot of art supplies before finding my true love. A thorough internet search tells me Laurie Graff may yet be looking for her prince.
“Lowertown”(No.3) in St. Paul, MN, should have been my true love forever artist studio heaven. It took my breath away on our first date. I was a goner: live-in space, high ceiling, a huge skylight, relatively cheap, hardwood floors, exclusive to artists, not-yet-gentrified, hip location and absolutely buckets of square feet. How big was it? Big enough to throw a fundraiser for the local Democratic party with keg beer, a full band and dodging stationary tools as we danced.
We broke up after less than a year.
As I turned out the light and shut the hollow core entry door for the last time I said, “It wasn’t you, it was me.” I was immature, footloose, insecure, broke and chasing a new girlfriend across the country.
And so my search has gone. I’ve found little success with studio space when I treated my search as I would pursue a next lover. Success mostly arrived when I was doing something else. When my main intention was something other than where I could best do my art. When I was looking for something else I somehow looked past the artist studio heaven right in front of me. And definitely luck too has been a factor.
There was a spot on “Bean Ave”(No.6) in Tucson, AZ, that ticked a bunch of right boxes for me. That new girlfriend I chased across the country eventually left me. But now I had a son. He and I both laughed when his trains derailed on my head as he played engineer in the trusses at Bean Ave. Bean was a two car garage with the space split by a partition, half for 2D and half for sculpture. A market just two blocks away served some of the best wood-fired pizza in town. I made a series of pull toys from welded steel and animal skulls there. I tied a five gallon bucket to the front of my truck for potty breaks. I never did put a bathroom to the top of my Bumble list.
I didn’t quite think through my financial plan for the cost of Bean plus our apartment plus child support. I was forced to leave both the studio and my apartment just months after setting up shop. No great loss-there’re always other fish in the sea. Other blind dates who could learn to love my welder and die grinder.
Not hardly my artist studio heaven
“The Guest House” (No.7) in Tucson, AZ seems almost not worthy of mention as a studio and yet it illustrates a profoundly existential truth about space and artmaking. My son and I moved into the Guest House after being evicted from a nice two bedroom Dad could no longer afford. Artists sometimes make lousy breadwinners. My minuscule Guest House bedroom became my studio. I drew 16” x 20” oil pastel abstracts on a shelf just large enough to prop a canvas. I made some very cool sh_t there. I still marvel at one of the pieces 25 years later.
The Guest House pretty much missed all the boxes for my ideal artist studio heaven and yet the lesson it taught was unmistakable: whatever the circumstance, the creative need bleeds through and will not be silenced if that’s your calling. And, it’s almost everyone’s calling in one form or another.
No. 5 on my studio hit parade was “Citizens Transfer,” an empty shell of a Thirties era warehouse once used to store goods in transit. Nearly windowless, sunlight lit the space by open man doors only for a time. Myself and about six other artists formed the founding collective for the space we originally dubbed “Warehouse Rancho Deluxe.” There was one bathroom, camaraderie and space for miles. The rental cost, about $200/month, added to my apartment rental eventually bit me in the butt and I moved on.
I was very close to studio nirvana at “Jeff’s Place” (No. 8) and I knew it. Like a good friend who turns into a great lover, this was a space I didn’t think was actually meant for me. My girlfriend and I had decided to move in together. She found a house not too far from the “Guest House.” We peeked in the windows, we looked over the fence, we drove the alley to see what we could see.
My takeaway was,”This couldn’t possibly be meant for us.” Something’s wrong, it’s too perfect. It actually wasn’t too anything. It turned out to be just completely ideal and we lived there well for seven years. And I made a ton of art in the carport studio right off the master bedroom. Here’s the swipe right checklist I discovered the day we moved in:
Live-in? Check
Cheap? Check
Huge? Check
Pretty? Check
Comfy? Check
Airy? Check
More important than what this space had to offer was what I was bringing to the space: maturity, confidence, a strong track record of shows and grants, connections with fellow artists and mature work supported by an accomplished mentor. I was also finally ready to let go of my cowboy-pirate image of the profligate artist guided only by hedonism and the desire to create.
The solution didn’t lie in finding the exact right studio that fit perfectly my self-centered and obsessively curated punchlist. The solution was understanding myself enough to recognize what sort of space could nurture and support me on my artist path even if it didn’t perfectly fit some preconceived classic mold.
And let's not fail to mention there was a fantastic coffee shop, an art supply store and a movie theatre all within walking distance of No. 8. Still, this was a rental and when we got in the market to buy we quickly discovered our forever home had some forever structural problems.
Hmmmmmmmm
We bought elsewhere. Across town. Not near an art supply store or a cute coffee shop. When I peeked in the windows before the house was ours I saw a nicely remodeled three bedroom with a stand alone storage shack. The storage shed was unfinished and filled chock-a-block with construction detritus and tools. It would make a nice place to save my mostly vegan wife from the smell of my pot roasts.
It took me five years to recognize the storage shed/meat shack as my next studio. . When I did, I sold, bartered and traded every bit of valuable I could lay my hands on to finish out the interior and it became studio No. 9, “Waverly Street.”
It’s about as close to live-in as I can get without the craziness of warehouse living. It could be bigger certainly but I’m resolved that when I can put more space to good use it will appear. Cozy trumps huge. And there is nothing cheaper than free when it comes with the mortgage.
You might conclude that I “settled.” That I bailed on the classic Hollywood famous artist fantasy of an atelier loft with skylights and a coffee shop on the bottom floor. Been there, done that and got the emotional scars to prove it. “Lowertown” No.3 also came with: a communal bathtub frequently encrusted with food waste from dishwashing gone wrong. An elevator that ended three floors below my loft on the seventh floor. An open sewer cesspool on the ground floor and zero privacy. All spaces were open access by order of the fire marshall.
My artist studio heaven was my ninth date out of 10 total tries. That sounds like volume is the key to finding Mr. Right. I don’t think it works that way. When I finally accepted myself as an artist with need for space and what sort of work I most wanted to do my dating profile narrowed and my perfect right space appeared.
For the longest time I thought I needed to be both a painter and a sculptor. After traveling the East Coast taking woodworking classes one year I realized I liked drawing the pieces far more than building them. I sold off my power tools and my creative life got much simpler.
I’d like to say after two books and countless attempts Ms. Graf finally found her heaven in a mate but a cursory search of the online universe reveals no answer to that question. But for her professional life, it's clear she’s found her heaven.
Artist studio honorable mentions
I feel compelled here to tidy up some loose ends regarding my own search for an artist studio heaven. Over the course of my career I’ve unpacked my bags and settled in with my one-and-only-forever a total of 10 times. Some were flings and some were wrong addresses and some straight up kicked me out. Here’s the run down on the also-rans:
“Kyle’s Basement”(No. 1) - I got 25 square feet of space, a workbench and an antique vise. I was sandwiched between a potter and a couple of assemblage artists. I made fun toys from good junk. My buddy came on to my girlfriend while I lusted after the potter.
“The Carriage Barn”(No. 2) - I built a double drum woodburning stove and installed a staircase to the second floor. I carved wooden bowls. My wife and I lived in an apartment next door. When I fessed up to an affair my wife decided divorce was better than me with a mistress on the side and left. “The Carriage Barn” wasn't a live-in until I couldn’t afford our apartment on my own. Bathroom facilities? Don’t ask. Google Maps Street View says it caught fire in 2024.
“Astro Fab”(No 4) - Again basically a few square feet but with access to the larger space. This was one of the most collegial arrangements I ever had. Something like a dozen woodworkers creating and building and drinking together in the same sawdusty space. But not while operating the abundance of power tools that was this space’s key amenity.
“Ansen’s House”(No. 10) - My son asked me to come help him ready his house in Minnesota for sale. I negotiated for space in his former grow room to make a studio while I was in residence. This one checked a bunch of boxes: live-in, cheap, cozy, room plus board and one very sweet granddaughter to draw with. I filled a complete sketchbook with ink drawings in the three weeks I (temporarily)was there.
So what’s the takeaway for a young artist just fresh out of the mill? You’ll need space to work or maybe just a shelf in your bedroom and a few supplies. Teaching art at a university could work, it often includes a studio. Just beware the pitfalls - loss of your soul and maybe commuting from home to another state to teach. Maybe simply start making work wherever. Begin some where.
The key for me was to believe in my creativity enough to act on it, consistently, despite setbacks, over the long term. My Tinder profile morphed over time and thanks to patience and perseverance my artist studio heaven just...showed...up.