Studios #4 & #5 - Milwaukee/Ft. Lauderdale

I moved to Milwaukee to study the collection at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  I lived across the street from the building for 7 months.  I spent almost every day there learning as much as I could about their collection in the short time that I had.  It was not a vacation, and money was tight but I feel I left with a good memory of the collection at MAM.

Studio #4 was in the second bedroom of the two bedroom apartment I rented across from MAM.  I did paint four complete works there.  I have no photos of the actual studios, so just enjoy some pics of what I created while I was there.

Bowling Alley 16 "Saint G b" 

oil on canvas

60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 21 "The People a" 

oil on canvas

60" x 36"

 Bowling Alley 22 "The People b"
oil on canvas
60" x 36"

Bowling Alley 23 "The People c" 

60" x 36"

Studio #5 was in Ft. lauderdale Florida.  I had completed my study of The Milwaukee Art Museum so i needed a change and i did not want to return to Minneapolis just yet.  I moved there for personal reasons that did not work out so I promptly moved back to minneapolis after 5 months.

Alas I have no pictures of the studio, it was gorgeous.  I created some good work in florida, as living there changed me artistically and set me on the direction that still I find myself going.

Bowling Alley 20 "I" 

oil on canvas

60" x 30"

Bowling Alley 24 "Sounds a" 

oil on canvas 

30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 25 "Sounds b" 

oil on canvas

30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 26 "Sounds c" 

oil on canvas

30" x 15"

Bowling Alley 27 "Improvisation" 

oil on canvas

70" x 50"

Bowling Alley 28 "Stained Glass a" 

oil on linen

40" x 20"

Bowling Alley 29 "Stained Glass b"

oil on linen 

40" x 20"

Bowling Alley 30 "Stained Glass c" 

oil on linen

40" x 20"

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Studio #3 - 3219 Lyndale Basement studio

My 3rd art studio in Minneapolis was in the basement of an apartment building.  I had a 20' x 20' space with 30' ceiling and a tiny window at the top.  As with all of my studios I spent weeks prepping, cleaning (throwing out dead beat renters stuff out), building, and arranging the place until I was ready to paint.

I created my chrome works in this studio, and really not much else.  I worked on my large texture chrome paintings for almost a year before I was happy with them.  Living here was not uneventful, as i created one of my masterworks (or so i think it is).  enjoy the pics.

At the time I was so proud of this painting that upon completing it I sat and stared at it for over a month.  that might sound excessive, but it was so different, so new, that I had to be sure it was as good as I believed it to be.  When you create something that you truly believe a masterwork, its hard to accept at first.  You stare at it and evaluate its worth, your worth, and how it is going to be received.

Boots in the studio.

Greg

Catherine A. Palmer

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Studio #2 - 2617 3rd avenue south

After leaving the my studio apartment, I moved into an apartment with 3 guys,  Scott, Chris, and Stefan. They gave me a sun room and a fairly large living room as my studio space.  I wish there were more picture from this era, but alas it was before digital was popular and we didn't have money for film to just waste; so I only have these 6.

Studio #2 was crazy, as life at the time was crazy.  We held drawing nights where we had girls we knew model nude for us as we drew them.  We read the cult classics, created art and music all of the time, and built our friendships.  I still know everyone I met there.

I painted two complete series of works here.  Both taught me a lot about oil paint and color.

We threw parties, large building wide parties nearly every month.  At these music and art parties I would simply give away oil paintings to whoever wanted one for what ever donation they could give.  I must have given away 200+ works of art while I lived here.  

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Studio #1 - 116 Oak Grove studio apartment

My first oil painting space in minneapolis was in the basement of a house in north east where I lived with people i  did not like, and they did not like me.  That was probably why they had me paint next to the washer and dryer in a crappy low ceiling basement.  So lets call that Studio #0 and just leave it at that.

Studio #1, My first real art studio in Minneapolis was a studio apartment in Loring Park that I converted into an art studio.  It was an stimulating and productive time in my life.  I was examining abstraction, working on short stories and poetry, and learning how to make it without a day job.  I was relatively new to Minneapolis, and I had only met a handful of people I would consider friends.  

I converted the bathroom into my bedroom.  I had a board cut to fit the bath tub, attached with hinges to the top of the tub.  I would flip the board up, take a shower, flip it back down then roll out a mattress to sleep on.  The rest of the bathroom was a makeshift closet.  It was crazy cramped and messy, but it worked.  Seriously, have you ever tried to live in a bathroom?  We all do what we must to have what we want, and living in the bathroom was what I had to do.

The rest of the apartment was all art studio.  In less than a year, I ruined it getting paint on everything and paid high price for my youthful sense of creativity.  I used the freezer door to paint with at one point, as the toaster i was painting with at the time did not have a large enough edge to pull the oil paint how i needed it.  It was worth every dollar.

I probably completed 200 or so works of art in this studio, and it was crazy.  Here are some pics of the studio.

I was so proud of this painting, and its okay but not nearly as good as I thought it was at the time.  I created many works that I am still happy with today.  It does not mater if my work then was good, bad, junk or masterworks, I was building the skills I would need later as a professional artist.  Besides, in our art world its all relative to the individual so as an artist I could (and can) get away with anything I wanted to.  

At any given point there were 30+ oil paintings stacked up everywhere

During this time I met an oil painter named Philip Hoffman.  I became his apprentice shortly after we met (mostly because I kept bugging him to teach me what he knew), and we continued to work together for the next 4+ years.

Philip working on "The infamous Purple lake"

 Philip Hoffman worked with me in the studio until its inevitable end.  We created an entire series of works together in there, and became good friends in the process.

It became crowded fast, no room for anything other than oil paintings.  I still have that green shirt, it is seriously my favorite shirt ever.

Even the tiny kitchen was used for some type of artwork creation.

The tape on the floor was set for where I was to stand while I looked at the stage of my still-life.  It was part of my self imposed training/study as an artist.

Catherine A. Palmer and I worked together for years.  We will work and exhibit together again.

I had a very good time in this studio, and I was a ham (excessively theatrical) so we took tons of photos.

Stefan Johnson worked in the studio with me at times.  Here he is painting with a bathtub toy wind up bear and a toilet plunger.  Look for 2.2.3_Other tools for a detailed account of that day.

The downfall of this studio was the parties, or as I liked to call them the art openings.  We threw gallery like openings with our paintings in the hallways of the apartment building.  we actually sold some work doing this, and well it was fun.  I had screwed large lug bolts into the apartment hallway walls and painted whit over them so they were not very noticeable, but easy to just hang a bunch of oil paintings for a weekend art show.  The neighbors didn't care, they thought it as fun.

Eventually the apartment managers caught on and came to one of the openings.  I saw a group of suits come in, thought that it was odd but maybe they saw the flyer and wanted to look at the art so i invited them into the studio.  We small talked and then I suggested that they take some time and look at the paintings, they told me that they had seen enough and handed me eviction papers.  That was the abrupt end of my first studio.  Worth every penny.

  I have hundreds of photos from this studio, so i will just leave you with with these.

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