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For the last week we’ve traveled through Helsinki, Berlin and London to end up in Dallas to pick up our dog, who has been spending the summer with family. We drove from Dallas to our home in Providence and now are preparing to move into a new live/work space this month.
We’ve always wanted a single place to live and work but for one reason or another [read: money] this has never worked out. for the five years we lived in LA, affording sizable studio space was a frequent source of frustration that ultimately became a reason to leave.
One of the great things about Providence is the abundance of old factories that have been transformed into a wide range of live/work spaces ranging from luxury lofts with granite-counter-tops to spaces that artists can actually afford and have enough space to get things done.
As an aside, this is one of the two reasons why so many artists live in Providence (the other being proximity to Boston and NYC). I should add that RISD is a good anchor store.
Our studio has always been a short drive away from where we lived, which has the illusion of keeping our home life and work life separate. In reality, what our work ends up looking like is half office-work and half studio-work. Since our past studios have been so rough, the office-work, including files and printers and such, happened at home. We’ve never had a real separation of work and home. And don’t get me started on how being married to your collaborator magnifies this.
Our studio last year was 20 minutes away from our home/office. This was just enough to make us think twice about taking a trip, which ultimately means less time in the studio. On top of that, it was super cold in winter and too dirty to do paperwork. Our thinking now is that a live work space will take less time and money and be a more efficient place to do everything we need to do.
The place we’re moving into has two floors. We’ll live on the top floor and work on the bottom. Our idea is that we’ll make downstairs and breathe upstairs.
Art, money, living and working are terribly hard to balance. We’ll let you know what we find out.
I live in Seattle and am knee deep in the same dilemmas; collaborate with my wife, work out of home (which part is my life again?), and space is off-the-charts expensive.
Who made the 3d pie chart?
The new work is cool. I want to see the video.