Let's Talk Studios [278]
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Hello and welcome to Art Juice. This is honest, generous and humorous conversations that will feed your creative soul and get you thinking with me, Alice Sheridan. And me, Louise Fletcher. And today we're back for a little bit of a catch up. We've both been busy doing other things, but we have got a subject that we have both been working on, which I think is applicable for everybody, which is

talking around how you organise your studio and just in general your work environment, how that affects you, what you can do to change it, how you know when it's time to do that. So we're going to be having a little bit of a chat about that. In the meantime, give me a bit of an update. What have you been doing? Backwards and forwards between the new property where the workshop will be and home. And yesterday when I arrived...

by a miracle, the plasterers who said they would come and do the plastering had come and done the plastering. And it was people just doing what they say they're going to do when they say they're going to do it and surprisingly doing it faster than you expected.

And to a standard where my builder came and went, this is not bad. This is not bad, which I don't think I've heard in techies knowing him. Pass the Andy test. Yeah. I don't think I've ever heard that. So that's good. But painting as well. So how it's ended up working out is when I get back, I try and do all my admin and all my...

any video editing, podcast editing while I'm here. And then when I get back, I have a couple of days of studio time. So I have been painting and tidying my studio, which is actually one big advance though that happened in my videoing of my process. Speaking, you were saying earlier, you don't want to share anything. And I'm the opposite because I like sharing what I'm doing. But

But I watched this guy on YouTube who's a young guy who's doing up a cottage in Scotland. It's one of those niches you go down. And I watch him videoing his life up there in Scotland. And he's very good with his videos at...

setting up a tripod and filming himself. So it's not just him talking to you. You're watching him do the things. When I was tied in my studio, I thought, I wonder if I could do that. Like how hard would it be? So I got a tripod and set it up and then just picked it up and moved it around at various points.

And it was great. And then we did everything up and I had this film and it just was really cool. And I thought, God, all these years of making YouTube videos and I haven't ever thought to do this.

It just adds a whole other dimension. And my favorite part was a shot where I went up over my garage and I showed me going up the stairs and then I moved the tripod in and came in and shut the door. And then, so you saw me go up the stairs and then you saw the camera switch and I came in and shut the door and I was like, wow, look at that. So yeah, it's called B-roll footage. Yeah. It's called B-roll footage.

Well, this isn't B-roll. This is A-roll for me. This is the whole film. But anyway, go on.

Well, it's B-roll if it's kind of background and you just doing something, it's B-roll rather than you talking on camera, talking to the camera. Oh, I thought B-roll was like when they show you a woman diving into a pool when they're talking about, when someone's talking about meditation and then you see a woman diving into a pool and it's just some footage, stock footage you got. I thought that was B-roll. I didn't realise. Yeah.

So I was shooting B-roll. So there I go. It's a good thing to have in your kind of bank because, I mean, you can use it, like you say, as backgrounds where you talk about something else over the top. Yeah, it's something to think about. I'm quite interested in it now. So anyway, that's it for me. What about you? What have you been up to? Oh, I have been. I have been going away as we're recording this tomorrow. Yeah.

I will be getting on a very long flight to go and be in Bali and prepare to run this retreat, which I'm doing, which I'm really looking forward to. But since we last spoke, unusually for me, been away as well. So I went skiing, which I just I'm not a great skier. I'm not a brilliant skier. I'm not a rubbish skier.

I just love the feeling. The exhilaration of it is just fabulous. So I had a skiing holiday with my husband that was very relaxed to not be accompanied by lovely teenagers who always want to kind of push you and go, let's do this. And mum, you're going so slow. It's like we could go at our own pace.

That was really, really nice. And somehow between then and having to go away, I have finally managed to get my arse in gear and get stuck into a project which I have been wanting to do but been in resistance about since probably pre-Christmas because it is a mammoth task.

And I had started doing it. And then I think I'd scared myself off. And that was redesigning our membership hub. And I mean, we've got this crazy spreadsheet. It's got something like 394 rows. And each one is a lesson in the category that needs to be checked. The graphics redone, moved, tagged.

I've been there, done this. It's a huge undertaking. And I think I just knew that once I got stuck into it, it would be all absorbing. So I couldn't do it at a time when I had other things going on. Anyway, for some reason, I decided about two weeks ago that now was the time. So I have been doing that fairly full on and realising that I'm a disaster to work with because I've had some...

tech help on it who she's like if we could just write everything in it write everything in a list and then I could work on some of those things and I'm like yeah I know but I don't know what they need to do until I can get in and get my hands dirty and play with it and see how it works and feels when you click and move around and then I can make decisions on it and I wish I operated in a different way and also I love that you know when I get in I

I can do that and I can make the and I do get stuck in and I can figure things out and think, oh, this is a problem. And I'm getting better at saying there's a problem here. Can you look at that element once I've identified what it what it what it is? But bringing other people to be involved at particular stages is definitely something that I'm still doing.

Figuring out how to do. I struggled with that because when we did ours, Tracy came for a day and we worked on a whole plan, which seemed great in post-it notes. And we laid it all out on a big pin board. And then I started doing it and changed everything we'd done and messaged her and said, I'm sorry, I've changed everything because I've realized it doesn't work and I'm doing it this way. So I'm bad that way. And then the other way that I'm bad is I will let other people set it up and then go and

Oh, now I've pressed it all. You can't. I've got to change it all. So I think we're both a bit probably nightmares to work with on things like this. But I think the point about this is the way to think about it that perhaps is a little bit more helpful is that rather than seeing this as what I just said, I'm a nightmare to work with.

This is the way often that things get resolved. And the devil is, you know, there's a phrase, isn't there? The devil is in the detail. It's when you're in the weeds of working something out, that the progress happens, that the change happens. Like it's very easy doing something in theory, but when you're in there doing it,

That's when the shift happens. And I think it's just part of the stage of developing everything. And it's really important, actually, if you are going to take ownership of something, whatever it is that you're creating, it has to feel right. And you can't outsource that, maybe. Yeah.

Anyway, that's what I've been working on. But it's just that feeling of being in resistant to it because I know it's a big thing and then sort of getting over that. Okay, let's go. Let's go. Just like pushing off at the top of a steep ski slope. Really? Are we going to do this thing? Let's go. Oh, this is good now. This is good. So, yeah, it's been...

It's been good. It's been a very, very, very busy few weeks. Very busy few weeks. It's funny how you got the energy to decide right now's the time, right before you're supposed to be going away to do a retreat and you've got all that to do as well. Madness. Yeah. Never mind. The sun has been out. Yes, it is. It's also been good. Yeah. Yeah, we've had like quite a lot of winter sunshine, which is really nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, with that being said, let's move on to this idea of, I suppose we've got work environment on our notes, but for me, it's very much home environment too. And this goes back to,

Quite a long way for me, this sense of how we exist in the space around us, the space in which we live. But I think you were talking about it more directly in terms of studio organisation. So tell me what came up for you around this.

I was but actually now you mention it also home organization is big too and not thought of that but yeah it came up because two reasons really I'm ready to start a new series of paintings so I wanted to organize my studio in my garden at home and get that cleaned up and I am a terribly messy worker in every way and I just it was just horrible so I got all that tidied up

But I've also got this big space that I'm building and I'm thinking it's getting to the point they're going to paint it this weekend. And then it's time to start thinking about painting walls and painting trolleys. So I was thinking of very practical studio organization. How much storage do I need? How many benches do I need? You know, what do I actually need? But on top of that, I was thinking about I have a little bit of space

Studio envy, maybe. You do? Yeah, not about the spaces. God, I'm very lucky with that. About the way some people make their spaces in a way mine never is. So mine is always utilitarian, practical, messy, dirty. You know, dirty as in dirty brushes lying around. It's just...

And then I go into some people's spaces and they are comfortable, cozy even. Some people like to make a space which is a place where they paint, but also it's kind of surrounded by their things and their personality, which is more what I do in my home.

but I don't do in my studio. And sometimes I have a little bit of envy about that. So as I look at this big empty space, I'm like, okay, do I make any cozy areas? Or is this, am I just by nature a practical painting a warehouse type person?

And you look a bit bemused by my idea of envy in people's cosy spaces. So tell me what you're thinking. Well, I was going to preface this conversation with just a note that you are in a situation now that not very many, so not very many people are in with the amount of space that you've got available. I haven't seen a picture of the, but I know it's a barn, right? So, you know, it's a big space.

you know so when we're talking about perhaps different areas for doing different types of things you've got the space to set up different areas to do that whereas you know for you know and us when we started and you when we started it's very much about working with what you've got and adapting and yeah mine at home is yeah 30 square meters at home and there's

Even that's quite big though, isn't it? It's quite big, but the people I'm talking about, they're not big. The people I'm talking about, the spaces where they've made a cozy area and a painting area, they were nowhere near as big as my room.

And that's just the first thing to preface this with is that like where we create like it could be a desk, it could not even be a permanent full time table that you're working on. That was absolutely the first thing for me was just carving out one permanent full time table that was in a room that was an inverted commas, a spare room that was nobody, nobody rarely used.

and claiming that space, which is super important. And then we've got everywhere from in between from when you've actually taken over there may be that spare room or cupboard or lots of people now have a cabin or a shed in the garden, but it's small room size, right?

Yeah. And you're talking about the feel of how that. Yeah, I'm talking about more less about the size of the space because it's been the same for me, whatever size I've had. Yeah. Always being not cozy, not not personal.

I'm thinking of when I went to Tracy's space, she was in Cheltenham at the time and she had two little rooms. One room was where she was painting and one room was like this really nice little office space with a desk and a chair and not expensive pieces of furniture, just...

But it was cozy. And then sorry, Tracy, to talk about you if you're listening. And then even in her painting space, I opened this cupboard where all the paints were. And on the inside was photos of her all through her life at different stages. And she said, oh, I just like to have like me in my space.

And the pieces of furniture she had in there were all pieces of furniture that were discarded from the house, but still being used. So they were very much her. And I felt her when I went into the space. I think when you come into my space, you feel you've gone into a studio and

but I don't think you would particularly feel me in it. And I sometimes think, and I try, it's not like I haven't tried, you know, to go, right, I'll put some pictures up and I'll make it, but that just doesn't seem to be me. So that's what I meant by envy. And I wonder what you get from that. Do you get something that I'm not getting when you have that sense, when you walk into the space that this is completely me, I'm surrounded by everything I love?

in this space, I just walk in and get right down to work because I'm in my workspace. I wonder if other people would see it differently in terms of seeing you in it. I mean, I don't feel that my, I feel that my spaces that I work in are fairly utilitarian. They're not that cozy. I mean, this room at home now, it's got, do you mean bits like this along the back?

Can you see? Yes, I can just see like a bird or something. Like there's a bird, which was a sculpture that my uncle bought me. We went to an art exhibition when I was about 16. And he bought... So like there's...

like there is a bit of a personal connection with that, but I wouldn't take that to my painting studio. That's just here. Cause it's your painting studio is more like my painting studio. It's quite utilitarian. And I do get the envy because I have, I have seen it and I've got nice big windows, but they're frosted windows and they overlook the side of another unit. So they don't get a lot of light in there. Um,

and I've seen other people's spaces and they look nice and they look lively. And like at one point I did bring my, one of my husband's favorite plants and he said, don't kill it. What do you think happened? You killed it. Killed it. I've even bought a fake plant to have something in the corner that is not square and hard edged and industrial. Um,

And it kind of lives in the corner, not doing much. But it's an attempt. A couple of comfy chairs, that's it. And I have a couple of rugs on the floor because the floor is concrete. And I just thought, hey, it...

Just it softens the sound and the feel a little bit underfoot. And also, I quite like working on the floor sometimes. And if you're rolling out big canvases, like having that carpet on the floor gives me something that is arguably a little bit less dirty than the cardboard and concrete painted areas elsewhere. If I want to be on the floor doing something. Yeah, exactly.

Yes, I do think when I came to your space, I thought it looked like a brilliant art studio. But again, a lot like mine, very practical and

and straightforward and like we come in here to work. We don't come in here to sit and browse books and be comfy and cozy. And I suppose in this, because like you say, I'm in a very lucky position that I never thought I'd be in to design a big space and try and think about using that. And I suppose that's why it came up.

But similarly, in this house, which I will, I'm setting up the whole downstairs of this house to be when we have workshops in the studio, people will come in here for lunch or come in here to talk. And so I want in here to feel very cozy and welcoming, but I'm starting with a complete blank slate. And at the moment have lots of furniture in here, which isn't even mine. It was just inherited that they left behind and I'm slowly replacing things and

I find that very hard in the house. There's a TV cabinet there, which actually makes me want to cry. It's so horrible. It's like a 1980s pine TV cabinet. I've just ordered something to replace it, but it's so horrible. I can't bear it.

But in my studio, that doesn't bother me so much. In my studio, so I'm very much divided into the house. I want to be exactly a cozy cocoon that is mine. In the studio, I'm like, I'm fine, but I can't stand it getting too dirty. But apart from that, I'm not concerned.

Sorry to flip around a lot, but the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is we're talking about the environment, but it's also the organization aspect of environment, which gets more important the smaller the space may be. Yeah. In my home studio, I find it very difficult because I do everything in there, filming my videos, painting, painting.

you know and and that's two very different things and yet i do them all in the same small space plus all my storage is in there there's nowhere else to put paints and things so everything's there and i find it very hard to to make enough room to do anything for all the things i'm storing and i know you just went through a big like reorganization thing so i just thought that would be interesting to talk about too

I think the thing that's interesting for me is, or the thing that's helpful is, I mean, when we're talking about this idea of how much stuff you have around you, I think we all have a different landing place on the scale of what feels comfortable. And for some people, like having a lot of things around them, it does bring a degree of comfort. It's a deliberate choice of

filtering and bringing in things that you enjoy that stimulate you in the right way and yes they make it feel cozy and you know I like having some of those things too and then it reaches a point where it starts to feel visually intrusive overwhelming cluttered actually stops my clarity and I

I think we all have a different sense of where we are on that scale, but perhaps not always consciously. And I think the kind of clearing and decluttering thing that we have just had is like where you've realized that things have changed over time.

like where you started off working in a space in a particular way and over time you've brought more things in like when you bring more things into your wardrobe but you never have a clear out and you're bringing things in and you're bringing things in and it happens in a working space too you buy more materials but you're still keeping that sewing stuff that you did and you get more materials but you're still keeping actually that stack of stuff because that's the shelf where the

and it's right there at eye level within you know easy grabbing but actually you don't need to go to that shelf on a regular daily basis because that's where you store them and i think when we have a long-term practice that evolves we have to put regular points into review and say is this still working for me and that often involves disrupting and changing practices

that have become so familiar that you don't notice them anymore. And I think that's a super valuable thing to do for yourself. And it takes a lot of energy to do it. It takes a huge amount of energy to do that because what you're having to do is kind of confront actually lots of decisions and realizations about, oh, I bought that stuff and I've never used it, or I moved on from there. Is that a part of me I'm ready to let go?

but it's in service to the direction that you want to move in. Yes, yeah. And when you're... So there's two different problems that people listening will face because some people I know who listen are making their own space or are currently building a cabin in the garden or something and other people are in that situation of, 'I've been in this space for years and now I've gathered all this stuff.'

When you're confronted with, so I've got that problem of reorganizing in where I am. Yeah. There's definitely things I need to let go of there. And also things I thought I wanted in there when I wanted it to be homely. I wanted my art books. Yes. My art books in there. Now I just think, why are they in here? They're getting spattered with paint or they're getting, I never look at them in there. I'm not going to sit down and look at a beautiful big color Joni Mitchell book and

Oh, you see, I do. Joan Mitchell, Joni Mitchell.

I won't do that in there because it's grubby. It's grubby and not an environment for that in there. I do that in the house. No, I do do that. I do have some. I have most of my art books at home, but I do have some in the studio. And there are times that I do get them out at the beginning of a session or I'll have a space away from the messy area where I can lay them open where I'm looking at. Whether it's just... And sometimes it's just reminding me...

I don't know, something about scale or different types of mark making. It's not a direct reference. I don't need to have them in my line of sight where I'm really making messy stuff. Again, it's almost just like a just a OK, just bring this somehow mentally into this space because this is something you want to draw into how you work.

And I think in the bigger space, I'll definitely want that. Yeah. There will be room to have a place to put them separate, which you've got in your space. Yeah. Whereas in my little space at home, it's not big enough really to take the space up with that. No. And it comes down to where you do things. And you're right. I do have space in my studio out of home. I have space for that. But I think one...

there's a danger with books. It's like we have books and they sit on a bookshelf and we never get the damn things out and look at them. So, you know, even if you have that at home, just make a practice of getting one or two out occasionally and leaving it where you see it on the breakfast bar, you know, on your coffee table where you sit down and you're like, you're going to flick through it even while you're watching. Like it doesn't matter, but it's not doing anybody any good sitting on a shelf with the covers closed. Yeah, absolutely. So it's so much for me about

actually are things in the right place for how I operate and how I want to operate. And you have to sometimes make those decisions to clear things and move. But what I'm saying is it's so easy to have got in a prebuilt rut or habit about how you do things. Yeah. Really easy. And it's just when you catch yourself going, Oh,

You know, and it can happen for me. It has to happen like a lot of times for me to go, oh, it's really annoying that every time I need to wrap paintings, I have to go and gather like the brown paper is upstairs and the tape lives in the utility room and the scissors live in the desk drawer. What the fuck? I mean, that's not helpful. Put it all in one place. Literally, I had to do that probably five or six times before I thought it would be useful to keep all these things together and

And it sounds really daft when you do it afterwards. You think, why did it take me so long? But you don't know what your habits are going to be until they shift, right? It's taken me ages to think two plastic trays for my pallets is not enough. It's not enough. I need to get more plastic trays and have like five pallets lined up or six pallets or a big piece of glass or something different. I need something to do something different from this.

But I was watching a YouTube video about a lady who lived in this great big house, massive great big house. And she had a packing room and this was the room, a wrapping room. And this was the room she used for wrapping gifts. Just only a wrapping room. That's all she went in there for. That's what you need to do, Alice. I don't know what you did. I don't know what you're thinking. Well,

I'll tell you a funny story. When Jenny came over last time, Jenny Femour, artist friend of mine who lives in Spain, but last time we were getting ready for Manchester, she came over to mine because she'd had frames delivered and we were putting them together here. And then by the evening, we were fantasising about those frames.

Hold your horses. It's not that bad. This is what we were fantasizing about in the, where had we seen it? In a kind of office supply catalogue where there is a wrapping station desk that has a big support for a huge roll of bubble wrap. Yes. Paper and a big sack with shelves and a big flat surface. That's what we're fantasizing about.

And do you know what? In this barn, there's a small mezzanine part, not the whole thing, but part of it is a mezzanine. And I was actually looking at that because it's not really practical. No, that's your office space. Well, it's quite low ceiling and it's bad up there. But you don't want to be lugging for packing and wrapping things. You don't want to be lugging things upstairs. That's true. Yeah.

Sorry. No, that's actually, that's where the art books can go and a little table with an, a little soft chair. And then you can sit looking at your art books, looking down over what you're painting. Maybe solution. Maybe that's, but you see, when I went to California, I worked with baby Jin a lot in her studio. And she was telling me that when she got her space and her space is probably as big as this place I'm building, um,

That she walked in and she was like, wow, this is a brilliant space. Now I'm completely overwhelmed and I don't know what to do, how to set it up, what should I do? Because I was complimenting her on how it was set up. And she said, because that's a big building full of artists, she had another artist friend come in who's very good at that kind of thing, who talked her through all the different ways she could set it up.

And it was really well organized and I loved how she was using it. And I thought that is what I'm lacking here because I can't just go into Kirby Stephen, which is this little farming town in the middle of nowhere and say,

Would one of you farmers come over to my barn and help me decide how to set up this art studio? But maybe I need to invite a few people over and say what would be... Have you got a... I mean, you've got a tape measure and a drawing. Do a drawing and work it out with pencil. I know, but it's... Oh, I was trying to explain this to someone else yesterday. I am...

I have many strengths. This is not one of them. Visualizing things, planning things. I'm more of a like, put it together, decide something, put it in. It's not right. Move it. Put something else in. I do this in my garden. That's not right. Move it. Eventually get to a solution. And I'd love to be a person.

who looks at a space visualizes it and goes yes i know what i want in here what about pacing it out then you've got access to it you can pace it out i mean yeah i mean i've got general idea like this end i'm going to do video filming and that won't get touched this end is going to be a seating area over there's painting over there's drawing i've kind of got that within that

You think, oh, yeah, but where will the cupboards for paint go? And where will I, you know, and there's kind of a fear that comes in. And I got this in my smaller cabin that I built in the garden. It's a fear of getting it wrong at the beginning, because if I get it wrong, then it's expensive and time consuming and hard to change it all later.

Yeah, if there's stuff that's built in. You want to work it out and get it right. With yours, when you first walked in, because I know you built furniture for it, didn't you? What was it when you walked in? Could you kind of see how you wanted it all set up? Well, there was space at the back where there was a sink. So that was the only thing that was fixed. The sink and the windows were fixed.

And so I didn't want to cut the light from the window. So I have a long, they're just, they're those cheaper Ikea Ivar units with a plywood top that I cut to fit that makes a long bench on the right-hand side under the windows. And I thought I would sit at that bench and work, but I don't because I don't like having my back to the room. Yeah.

So I use that bench for like placing paintings on or like I say, having books open out on that kind of thing. But I don't actually use if I want to work on a table space. I have trestle foldable trestle tables that I get out and I put in the middle of the room because that gives me a real like I often put too deep. So I've got a really big expanse to work on.

And I move them. I move those tables all the time. I make a horrible dragging sound when I drag them around the room, but I move like none of that is fixed. So the only thing that's fixed is a wall at the end that's got all the storage junk behind it and a painting wall on the painting side. And then everything else moves.

Foldable tables is interesting. I hadn't thought about that, but that's interesting because then it's optional whether you have... The people in California in that building, a lot of them have these amazing big wooden painting trolley table things, which are huge. Yeah, got one of those when my husband built it. Well, we built it together. Yeah, well, I was thinking of having a few of those built, but then I thought...

but then they are kind of there and you can't get rid of that. That is kind of in the way if you want to do something else. Yeah, but you've got enough space maybe to push those to one side. I mean, I don't know because I haven't seen the dimensions. I was thinking more say when there's a workshop and people come in and you want as much floor space as possible and you've got these big things. Although what Bibi does is people work on those big things for the workshop. So that works for her. So yeah.

I suppose in some ways trying to foresee everything is just... The one thing that I would say that has changed for me, and again, this depends how you work, is tables are obviously table height and they're designed for sitting. I rarely sit down. No, I do. I prefer working standing up. So actually the bench thing that we built...

You can put another layer on that easily, or you can just make sure that the legs are higher to begin with. Whereas the table, but again, even then it's funny because even if the tables are too low, if they were higher, I'd feel like I couldn't fully extend my arm if I'm standing up and working on them. So I'm sure that there are ergonomic reasons why a table height is not great when you're working standing up.

but it does give me that sense of perspective and distance from it rather than being too closed and closed in. And I think that that is something that is really worth considering. Whatever size space you're in is how physically you operate in the space. So I mentioned I don't like sitting with my back to that big room. Here, I'm sitting at a desk that's facing a wall. This is room size and I'm quite comfortable here. But in that big space...

I just don't feel very settled with my back to the room. So I never do it. So, you know...

But that feeling of being able to stretch out and move when you're making paintings and the frustration of not being able to do that, that was the key instigator for really making changes in my working space when I was working at home. Because I did have a table here and I was like, actually, this has got to go. This has got to go. If I want things to shift and change, I have to be ready to make these decisions, which involves saying no to things, as do all decisions in life, can't do it all. Yeah.

Yeah, yes. I had a big table built in my cabin at home, a long table that goes the whole length of the cabin. And I thought that's what I wanted. And in hindsight, I would get rid of that. But it's too big and heavy to go anywhere at the moment. So it just stays there. But I would get rid of that. And I would just have my moving table, which I could push to the wall and be a table when I need it. But it can also come and be my painting trolley to move with me.

In hindsight. So there are all these things. I suppose that's the thing. It will always need to change. You will always decide something like you found or dispension what I thought it would be. There'll always be that. Yeah. And we just have to like start in a painting. Perhaps you can't think your way to the perfect solution. You just have to do some things and then see.

Yeah, I mean, anything furniture-wise that can... It's just worth looking at if you can repurpose it, reuse it, move it. Casters on the bottoms of things are great. Yes. You know, anything heavy to have casters on. But just in terms of stuff and gathering things, you know, we hold on to art materials, but I think particularly when I've done it with...

paints and all sorts of things, sometimes you go back to them and they're dried up or they're not used or, and you think this has been filling a cupboard. Yeah. And when you've done that a couple of times, the thing that I like about it is it makes you feel really, it makes you much more conscious of then what you do choose to buy. So ultimately it saves you money. Right. When you've realized that, oh, okay, I've bought that.

and they've all dried in their tubes. When you're next time you're in an art supply store and you're like, oh, that looks good. You're like, yeah, but are you really going to use that? Are you really? And it's just a little break in that department. And I kind of quite appreciate that. I mean, there are very few times these days where if you really need something, you can't source it or go and buy it or ask if anyone else has it that you can try first.

I think it's much easier to get stacked up with stuff and not notice how that's impacting you. That would be my encouragement. Wherever you're listening to this, where you do your creative work, just look around your space right now. And you will have things that emotionally you love and you want to keep and they're decorative and they serve no purpose. No one's saying get rid of that.

But equally, there'll be parts that you think, oh, do you know what? I haven't even noticed that I've kept all of that stuff. And actually, it's just in the way. Yeah. Yeah. I also have a tendency, if you open a cupboard, you look around now, it's quite tidy in my studio. Yeah.

And I'm quite proud of how tidy it is. And when I finished painting the other day, I washed all my brushes and put them back in the tubs because I didn't want it not to feel like that. That's a change. Shocking. But it won't last long. But if you open the cupboard, I bought one of those Welsh dresser things on eBay for like 20 quid and painted it white and stuck it in the corner for storage. And that, if you open the doors of that...

All sorts of things will come out and will fall out. And they're the things that I couldn't decide. Like, I don't really want to get rid of this. I don't know what to do with it. I'm just sticking it in this cupboard. And what do you think about them now? When you open the cupboard now, having had that first round of, I can't make a decision about this. Yeah, it makes me a bit annoyed. Like, ugh, all this in here. Is it easier to make a decision now? Well, I haven't tried, but perhaps it will be.

Yeah, because I'm like, this is just, and you know what? It was like when we decluttered our house years ago in America for moving and there was one room that was full of clutter. And then when it was emptied out and we got it decorated and tidied up and every time I went past it, I felt myself lighten. I didn't realize how heavy I felt going past that closed door because I knew what was behind there.

And that cupboard is the same. It's full of some things in there important. There's some varnish, but there's also some varnish, a brand that I bought of satin varnish that's really glossy. I think it's Liquitex and I don't like it. Why is it still in there? Why haven't I just got rid of it? I don't like it. I don't need to keep it. I'm never, ever going to use it. It's things like that. You see, when you have workshops, you can have a giving table. Yeah.

And you can have those things out. What a good idea. I just put a box of stuff, colours I don't use. Yeah, take something home with you. What a good idea. Oh, Alice, that's genius. Because I don't like throwing things away when there's a big bottle of varnish. It seems a shame to get rid of it. Yeah, and also it's a pain to pack it up and post it and send it to someone and blah, blah, blah. But if you're in the space where people can just take it.

I'm impressed with you washing your brushes that's new I washed mine and then they just live by the sink in a brush avalanche and yeah well I put them all in plastic pots so they're standing next to the sink not after you've dried not after you've washed them yeah standing up with the brushes up well I dry them I wash them flat

We are talking about decorators' cheat brushes here. Do I still have to keep them? Okay, well... You would honestly have a heart attack if you saw my brushes. They're awful. And every time I treat myself to new ones, nice ones, they end up either I forgot and left them to go hard...

And last time I said this, I got a lecture from someone about sustainability. I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm not perfect. So please don't email in and say, yeah, I do. I leave them sometimes and then find them all crusted up. Some of those I keep because sometimes I make marks with a crusted up brush, but some just know they're beyond saving.

Yeah, so I sometimes do that. I also do leave them in water for a long time so that I stopped buying nice brushes. Not because I don't like them. I love them, but I can't be trusted. I'm not allowed nice things. I just have to use cheap things. Oh, there's a thing. I'm allowed other nice things, but I'm not allowed nice brushes. I'm not to be trusted.

So, yeah. Now, just one one thing that we haven't talked about is really small spaces because we've both had that or certainly I had that cupboard for a while. And with the really small. When she says, for those of you who haven't been listening since the beginning, when she says I had a cupboard for a while, she's not talking about a cupboard for putting things in. She's talking about a cupboard that she went into to work. Yeah.

And I had a little desk built into it. It was about three by two foot. Yeah, I had a little desk put in and shelves built underneath it. And the shelves rolled out on casters, so they went under the desk, but you could pull them out and get to things easily. That was good because in a little cupboard, I had to crawl under the desk to try and see things.

And I put shelves up around the top of it to put paintings on. And I could only work small because that's the space I had, except in summer when I could go outside with an easel. But I think it's about making the most of that small space. And also, it was a bit cutting my cloth to fit. Like, I couldn't say, well, I'm going to make giant canvases and use tons of paint because it just wasn't possible. Right.

I'm going to use the space I've got. But you said something at the beginning that was so important about claiming space. And I know for some people listening, there's nowhere to claim space.

But for some of you, there is. There's a spare bedroom or there's something that in your house that isn't getting used very much, but you're not claiming it as your own. That was true for me. There was a room over our garage that the previous owners had converted and we were using as a guest space. And my brother-in-law actually said, why are you not painting in there? And I said, well, that's the guest room. And he said, you have guests like three times a year. That's ridiculous.

You should use it for your painting and make guests sleep, get a hotel. And I was like, oh, yeah, maybe I could. Yeah, this is where I think it's really helpful getting outside eyes on it because we tend to just overlook the things that we've once something has become habit.

we overlook it. We don't see the potential and the possibility in a way that somebody else coming in from the outside can. And way back before I kind of came back to doing art and I was, so we had bought at that stage, we'd bought a house that was so derelict, we couldn't live in it. It had one electric socket and Ivy growing through the floor. And then we had another house that had been turned into flats that we were changing back into a house. So this

having to visually reconceptualize the space was something that I'd done. But, and I was interested in particularly how we make our environments feel, because I think in that first house, I'd made the mistake of making things look good. And I created this lovely open plan kitchen where,

But there was no space to hang pictures because there weren't walls. And so I didn't want to make that mistake again. But I also realized that how many of the things in our environment are actually small niggles that we could change if we just if we just notice them.

And so I had this group and it was brilliant. There were six women and it ran for six weeks. And we, in turn, went to each other's house, had a drink, walked around the house, shared the bits we loved, the bits that annoyed us about our own home, where we were struggling with like...

you know, problems with or whether it was things that we never got around to changing or practical things like the fact that this is where all the kids come in and dump everything and there must be a better way of doing it. And then we kind of co-worked together on making inventive solutions for it. And it was brilliant. It was something. We need a traveling artist group to go to each other's spaces and discuss things.

It was such a lovely thing to do, to do relative to our homes. But what I'm saying is in your, you can do that in your art space too. And I think if you've got an art friend, do this for each other. Any art friend and set aside two days, one in each other's space.

And because A, you work so much better with company. Somebody encourages you when you hit your slow moments, when you hit those things where you're like, well, I don't know what to do about this. You know, here I've got a whole box of my creative journals from my early days as a designer with all my ideas in. I don't need them, but I don't want to get rid of them. You can have a discussion with somebody about them for five minutes and then you make a decision later.

together they might say that feels like it's important to you still yeah it is okay well let's that's okay then keep them yeah you know doing this doing this kind of work with somebody else is so much easier than doing it on your own

I want to do a shout out here as well for Anna McDonald, who has worked, who's done a lot of work on this with people. And she came to my home studio and helped me. And she's just, it's closed now, but she's just opened a membership called the Organized Artist, which I've joined just to sort out. And actually it's a lot of it is about,

clearing out your spaces at home because that overflows. I cleared out my tiny little cupboard, which is not an en suite bathroom. It's a cupboard next to our bed that's got a sink in and a cupboard under it.

And it has like all the stuff that you shove when you come back from holidays and like, you know, face scrubs that have dried up. And, oh, I got all that out and cleared it. And I tell you, I feel so good every morning when I get up and every evening when I go to bed because that space is now organized. And that's why this stuff is important.

Because it impacts the way you feel, which then impacts the way you want to feel about creating. Making that, doing that big studio tidy up before I started painting a new series was

made all the difference in the world because now there's a new feeling and you need a new feeling to make something different it can't be the same as it was before yeah even though it's just tidying up that wasn't even moving furniture it's just clearing out and making it organized but do you know why i think it's because it's a commitment and it's uh

It is that claiming your space that we've spoken about, but it's a commitment and clearing space for something new to come in. And that preparation that is cleaning, that's tidying, the making room for it, it's an opening up rather than just continuing the same way.

And I know, I think, I don't know if I do this more, more than most people, but this thing of doing something in a phase and then stopping and having a pause and then going again and then stopping and having a pause. I,

I just I couldn't I think my husband for example he's much more consistent he'll just like go just like here's just doing the thing doing the thing and I just have these bit like a wave of energy and then a stop and a reconsider and then it goes again exactly the same way that I've been doing this hub redesign you know and the fear there the fear there because I think

this is relevant is I'm going to have to make decisions about what is and isn't relevant. I'm going to find things that I think, okay, I have to redo that. And it feels a big undertaking, but now I'm doing it. I feel so energised in what this gets to look like now.

Yeah. And reconnecting with all the amazing things that we've created already within that membership space that actually, you know, even I'd forgotten. And I think that's an important part of this as well is reconnecting with where you've come from and what you've got until now and what you have gathered creatively and visually. And why have you kept that? If it's important to you, why have you kept that?

And it can be really nourishing. It's not just about cleaning or emptying. It can be really nourishing, I think, to recognize, yeah, these things were important to me. And that's, I don't know, that's just what it comes down to. Is this still important to me? Am I still going to use this? That's probably the one question that I think is helpful. And no one else can answer for you. And ultimately, you know, if it isn't important, that

you know, is this important to me? Is this a problem? If it's not a problem, it's fine.

Don't need to do anything, do you? No. And I was just thinking of, I watch Brian Rutenberg's YouTube videos from his studio and I don't think he's ever tidied or cleaned in his entire time in that studio. And it works for him. And Francis Bacon with his famous disgusting studio. It works for some people to be like that. It's just you have to know what works for you. And I know that would absolutely...

I think that's why going right back full circle. I think that's why the cozy things don't work for me.

It's clutter and it's distracting. Yeah. You don't want to feel cozy when you're working. That's not what you're going for in your work. No, although at home, very much I do. Yeah. Yeah, so I think that actually has made me feel a little bit better thinking, okay, as always, it comes down to just accepting yourself and how you like to be. And that would pull me away from...

what I'm doing and it and visually distracting that's why I don't like to make my wall my painting wall to get too covered in paint and I have to paint it again white because it's too visually distracting for me whereas when I see Brian's I love his videos on YouTube I actually shudder at the amount of paint that's all over everything how can I couldn't either

I need to be able to see the paintings a bit clearly within their own space. There's a limit where it's fine and it's messy. And I get very messy when I paint and there's stuff all over the floor and like dried up, dead soaked tissues and like bits of rotten cardboard and like all sorts everywhere. Yeah. But that's part of it. Comes back down to each to his own. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Well,

Happy building, painting, planning. Yeah, it's very exciting. I mean, it's one of those things that you only get to do once. Yes. All right. Well, I'll see you next time at some point. Not for a while because... Have a lovely time in Bali. I will. See you soon. Bye. Bye. Right.

You be, you be, you introducing them because I like... I be introducing? Okay. You be introducing us. You be introducing. Sorry. I think this is a delivery man who's lost. Just let me ring this number. I'm waiting for a piece of furniture and a... Hello? Hello, we want delivery for you from Pruvia. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm here but I can't find the house. Okay, what can you see? I don't know, I need to see another stone. Yeah, I can't really tell you where you are unless I know what you can see. Did you come over a stone bridge? Yes, I found a stone bridge. Yeah, right after the stone bridge, right as soon as you come over the stone bridge, my driveway is on the left. On the left?

Are you at the bridge or past the bridge? Yes. Yes, which? Are you at the bridge or past the bridge? Are you at the bridge or have you gone past the bridge? I just passed the bridge. Right. You can see my drive then, it's on the left. Okay, show me then. The gate, there's a gate. There's a gate in the left side. Yeah. Sorry. Sorted.

I can't remember what we were saying. No, neither can I.