Creating and Defining Studio Space

If I had one word to describe my dream studio it would be sanctuary. Sanctuary calls forth the notion of preserve and reserve, both referring to protecting and/or storing. My most valuable possessions are kept in my studio, inspirational resources and the raw materials for art making. My studio also houses finished pieces, as well as those works in progress, the pieces most alive in my being right now.

More important than the space however, is how the studio functions. Sanctuary also means to consecrate, sanctify or dedicate which is getting closer to what my studio is for me. How do you sanctify a corrugated tin industrial hanger with 30 foot high ceiling and a stained uneven cement floor? Luckily my twelve years of living and working through various apprenticeships in Japan gives me a sense of where to start. I start with the floor.

For me, sanctuary in the Japanese sense is created in two ways. One is physical and the other is a mindset. To create a sanctified inner space, it is necessary to delineate the different between sacred and mundane. To mark the outside world from the studio space, we take off our shoes before stepping onto the white carpet. Yes, white carpet, but not hospital white, a textured oatmeal-white. We do have to spot the carpet regularly with carpet cleaner. In workshops we often use the floor for somatic exercises. In the on-going painting groups we paint with acrylic in a large format against the walls with strips of drop cloths, which we also used for construction activities rather than using tables.

The aspect of the studio that maintains sanctuary is the mindset of mindfulness. Getting out of the habitual mind requires a quieting of the internal chatter in order to connect to deeper wisdom of the body and heart. Mindfulness is a particular kind of meditative attention, which in the studio engages authenticity, spontaneity and reflection. In production work in Japan, in a ceramic studio, kimono dyeing factory or a paper making village, mindfulness is an essential discipline which is easy to track by how carefully you use the work space and handle materials.

I have not lived in Japan since the eighties, but it continually creeps into my dreams, paintings, conversations and greatly influences how Studio Anavami functions. I originally went to Daitokuji Zen temple complex in Kyoto to study Buddhist Art for a couple of months. Whenever I was sure it was time to leave I would find some new and enticing to study or unusual opportunity. While I was there I continued to practice several of the Zen arts including tea ceremony, calligraphy and sumi-e. I also lived in the countryside for several years as an apprentice in ceramics and I worked in a papermaking village, where I pounded kuzo fiber with a wooden mallet sitting in a river. In those days even for a foreigner the first six months of an apprenticeship you swept the floor and made tea, while learning how to pay attention. Paying attention, ends up being the heart of creative work.

There is a Japanese saying that you can get wetter in dense fog than plunging into a lake. Likewise I continue to access my experience from living in Japan in things that I never consciously studied. My large figurative paintings, as well as small encaustic pieces are influenced by my various studies, but more pervasive is the attitude about space, materials and what is called shugyo or practice. All of the traditional cultural arts as well as performance and martial arts in Japan are at their core a spiritual practice which is meant to engage the spirit of life.

My introduction to the Japanese cultural arts has been the counter point I needed to discover my relationship to the creative process. It continues to be an on-going investigation expressed in my own work and the workshops and retreats that I offer. Studio Anavami expresses a range of activities and events including, talks, book signings and collaborations with martial artists, dancers, astrologers, Qabbalist, healers as well as creative process circles, workshops and retreats in Italy and Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.

I have tried several different ways of working my studio space, but the carpet with no shoes works best. Somehow the constant interaction to the ground alters my relationship to my mind and body and the creative process. I am stretched out on the carpet now with the sun shining in the west door with an ocean breeze coming in the rollup door to the south. It may sound eccentric to have pristine carpet in a painting studio, but it creates sanctuary and I love it.

                                                        Majio