Over at wildmuse.net my friend Aria has made a wonderful post about artists and their spaces, using the work of Fumio Tachibana for illustration. As anyone reading this blog knows, this topic is currently dear to my heart as I demolish my own studio in preparation for a move. I’m so glad Aria has brought this up. Her timing is perfect and I hope she writes more about this subject as her insights are always incredibly helpful.

I have always prided myself on being able to work wherever I am, as long as I have my basic tools at hand. I showed you these tools in Studio Tuesday #5. As long as I’ve got those by my side, and a bit of paper, I’m good to go. However, having a dedicated space in which to create without interference and disruption is also hugely important to the work and well-being of the artist. I’m fairly certain that part of my chaotic mental state right now is due to the fact that my studio is vanishing before my eyes. The studio is an extension of the artist. Sometimes it seems like I am vanishing before my eyes. (The ridiculous amount of email I have to answer says otherwise.)

Of course the walls are still there, and the things I’ve hung on the wall to inspire me are still there. My desk is as much of a mess as it ever is. But the space is growing bigger around me, emptier. If I think of the studio as an oil painting, then what is happening is the layers are being stripped away. We’ll be down to the gesso in no time, and then we’ll leave the entire canvas behind. I’ll no longer have the secure cushion of everything that enables me to create as I have done for the last few years. This is both liberating and a little frightening.

For me, the way through it is to keep in mind that phrase “to create as I have done”. If I go into the future thinking for one minute that the way I create and do my job in France will be anything like it has been since I set up the studio in the UK, it will lead to disaster. There is power in a blank canvas, even in the empty easel upon which the canvas will be placed. There is potential, and possibility. That potential is perhaps the ground on which the easel stands.

The other day artist Rima Staines shared a new symbol for 2012: rise and root. This symbol speaks to me about my own future. It sums up the why of what we are doing. Dis and I have both had enough of concrete sidewalks, of glaring lights in the night, of the ridiculous pressure to conform to a society of ladders (housing, social, etc) with which we inherently disagree. We want the greening rural France will offer us.

For me this is a beautiful expression of why my studio is vanishing, why I am putting myself through this chaos, and why it must be done. Thank you, Rima! I will take this and run.