SANDY GARNETT ART BLOG

I spent the week with my assistant making the walls pictured in my CT studio.  I closed a ceiling that was cool and 9ft tall, but like the rest of the space there was so much action, so many pipes and electric lines, that my eyes would wander all over the place and have trouble settling on the painting at hand.  So I walled off a painting area.  Through the gap in the photo is a 7ft deep entrance way where I am putting all my tools, where the door is, where the windows are.  Behind the camera lense I’ve  got another 500 square feet of office, inventory, shooting art area, bathroom and so on.  I will build sliding doors that cover both openings of the painting area when I want isolation. 

 I talked to my mother yesterday, who thinks I spend too much time and money on space.  She hasn’t sold 1.3 million in art so she thinks my space work is often a waste of time.  If I am comfortable in a space I can pump out more work.  The above exercise is intending to eliminate distraction, so I can sit in an insulated cocoon and contemplate one work at a time, clean walls, mint lighting, nothing else to occupy my mind.  This environment helps me to unfold the canvases in my mind.  People don’t realize that I’m running a small business and owning several small properties and making art for a living representing myself.  This painting pocket will be a gentle push, goad me in the right direction.  The thing is with the proper inspiration I can bang out a battery of five thousand dollar paintings in said space, if and when the mood strikes me.  If I were more of a known quantity, or represented by a name dealer, that 5 would be 20 or 30.  The ceiling in this space is nuts, the visual information deafening.  I ought to have displayed a before and after.  When the space was all open I would think about everything I saw in the 850 square foot space and struggle to focus on the easel.  With nothing but blank walls and one canvas my struggle to focus is eliminated.  As with many moves I make, this one was long in the making.  I spent a lot of time thinking about what the right move would be here.  When you have a nice, big space carve it up sparingly, cautiously.  This move was well thought out and you know that feeling you have when you’ve gotten around to project that is on your list, requires a lot of thinking and energy, and when scratched off the list makes your world a better place?  Here is my project of the month, half checked off.  I’ve got to get 13 4 inch recessed lighting cans in there on two dimmer switches, clean the walls up and I’m cruising for a bruising… I’m going to go nuts in there with the art this year, cannot wait.