A Peek into my Studio (and into my creativity)

A Peek Into My Studio (And Into How I Actually Work)

I am going to tell you something that took me a long time to give myself permission to admit.

I work on many pieces at once. Many. Always. That is just how my mind works, and for years I fought it because I had read somewhere that you are supposed to work on one piece at a time, finish it completely, and then move on to the next. I tried. I really did. And then I decided to stop.

Here is what actually happens in my studio every day.

I do not sketch my ideas first. I tried that too, in the beginning, because every book and course and well meaning piece of advice told me I should. But the things I drew never looked like the things I made, so I was essentially doing extra homework that produced nothing useful and that I did not enjoy. Now I let an idea live in my head for a while first. I turn it over. I wonder what it might look like in silver, whether it would work, what elements might belong with it. And then I go to my bench and I start finding out.

Sometimes a leaf I make turns out to be too large for the flower I had in mind for it. So I set it in what I call the for later pile, a small collection of beautiful silver elements that did not make the cut for a particular piece but are too good to melt down. The back half of my soldering blocks are usually packed with these little orphaned pieces. The front half is active working space.

Most days I walk into my studio with the intention of working on whatever I left on the bench the day before. I water my houseplants. Add hidden snacks around the attached living space for my parrots to look for. And then I pick up yesterday's piece and sometimes nothing comes. I turn it around. I look at it from different angles. I set it down and pick up something else.

Other days the solder simply will not cooperate. Other metalsmiths talk about praying to the solder gods and I understand that completely. On those days I put the piece down, take a breath, and pick up something else. This happens all day, every day. A piece comes forward, a piece goes back. Something gets set aside, something else gets picked up. It looks chaotic from the outside. From the inside it feels like the only way I know how to work.

Being an artist is a genuine gift. But expecting creativity to pour reliably out of your fingertips from eight in the morning until five in the evening in order to pay bills is simply not realistic, and I spent too many years pretending otherwise. On the days when I feel uninspired and frustrated, I make something just for the joy of it. Something small. Something that might be finished by afternoon. It almost always unsticks whatever was stuck.

My studio is split into two halves. The working half has my bench along the back wall with my kiln, rolling mill, ventilation system, and oxygen and propane tanks for my torch. The left side of the bench is for sawing, grinding, and polishing. The right is for rolling out silver ingots, looking through gemstones, and for houseplants I am hiding from my husband Josh. Even farther to the left wall is the desk where I package your pieces and write you love letters before I send them. I purposely put my desk next to that window because there is an ancient crab apple tree right next to it. I open the window every time I sit down at my desk to listen who is singing birdsong or buzzing right next to me. 

Welcome to where everything gets made for you!