Saturday, November 17, 2007

Men Have Wombs, Too

Ben and I belong to a group, City Daily Photo, where members post one photo from where we live every day; ours is Nelson Daily Photo. When we don't have a nice photo from around town, we look into my weaving pics pool and give it a different spin, as we did yesterday.

One of our ether friends Photowannabe mentioned her mother-in-law having a "nest" in her basement garage. I do like that my studio is in the basement, with just one window. It is my hideaway, my cocoon, and today, whilst responding to Photowannabe, I recognized it as a kind of a womb, too; a womb belonging to a composite of the many people who inspire and encourage me in my work. That includes Ben and Randy Darwall/Brian Mrphy; I'm sure they'd be thrilled to know they have wombs.

In contrast I see my stash room as a sports field/court, where I willingly and lovingly go in to battle. Sadly, the battle has been less creative of late, but more in keeping it tidy enough so I can walk between the cones and skeins to reach for whatever yarns or equipment I'm trying to reach. Ben's suggested adding shelves to the studio to have some stash there, but I'm trying to keep my stash manageable so I've rejected that idea so far. But of course I keep buying yarns, and some do live permanently in the studio. But I digress.

How do you see perceive creative space? Do you have a name for it?

2 comments:

  1. I must be really boring! I call my creative space my studio. I'm sure that's a result of the fact that this present studio is the first dedicated studio I have. My first was the taken-over dining room (which required everything to be moved out when we had guests), and in my previous house it was the tiniest corner of a single bedroom used as a guest/storage/weaving room.

    I applaud your restraint at keeping your stash away from the loom though. I've taken the opposite approach, and now have my whole stash in view on shelves beside the loom. I find looking at it all makes projects suggest themselves, as yarns leap out and ask to be combined.

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  2. Tara, I'm not sure if you're boring or I'm deranged; Beloved was speechless to read such a public announcement of his anatomy.

    I have the main body of my stash in the upstairs spare bedroom (single bedroom.) I measure my warp in the stairway. I fringe, press, dry, cleanup, and tag in my living room. I wash in the tub in the garage. I weave downstairs in a "studio" a room dedicated to the looms. And I design on the computer in the office. So good on you for having a dedicated space now.

    Looking at your stash while you weave is a wonderful thing. Randy Darwall said that Sharon Alderman said (talk about hearsay!!) she designs while ironing or weaving or, if memory serves right, taking a walk. I would do the same if I could, trust me. I am trying to clean up the stash enough so I can iron in my stash room again. I've also been designing more deliberately since I took a design course - it's worked in some way, more frustrating in other ways.

    Thank you for your comments, Tara.

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