Studio #3 - Basement studio - 3219 Lyndale

My third art studio in Minneapolis was in the basement of an apartment building.  I had a 20' x 20' space with 30' ceilings and a tiny window at the top.  As with all of my studios, I spent weeks prepping, cleaning, 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, and 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, it is 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 my studio apartment, I moved into an apartment with three 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 few pictures.

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.  We threw 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 wha ever donation they could give.  I must have given away 200+ works of art while I lived here.

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

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...more to come soon.

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 a 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.  I ruined it in less than a year, getting paint on everything, and paid a 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 or 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 it was fun.  I had screwed large lug bolts into the apartment hallway walls and painted white 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 just these.

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My studio environments

As an artist in Minneapolis, I have built or converted seven spaces into live-in art studios.  I refuse to waste money and pay for a rental studio surrounded by an undisclosed number of other studios with other artists energy and work habits.  If I wanted that boxed life, I would have become a graphic designer and worked in a cubical.  The money saved on studio rental is money that I have used on needed and expensive professional-grade supplies instead. 

I have always obligated to be moments away from my work.  I used to keep an easel by my bedside, so when I would wake, my current work I was contemplating would be right there, my first thought, and imprinted into my mind for the rest of the day.  I was then able to keep my paintings in my mind, making compositional choices as I went about my day.  When I returned home to the studio, my contemplation was over and I immediately could start working. 

I have always constructed my studios toward my needs as a painter, which are truly the needs of my relationship with my chosen medium...oil paint.  All relationships demand a certain level of yearning obligation, and oil painting is the most demanding mistress.  Per her request, I prefer to have the walls of my studio painted to be the bluest white possible.  Cold, malleable, and unnatural so I can set the tones with filters on lighting.  I use cheap unnatural florescent lighting and have always needed to balance out the yellow quality of that lighting.  Studios are what they are: work spaces, and each artist will know what they need.  What I use is vastly different than what another will.  Working with oils paint requires a certain kind of studio.  If my current series of oil paintings is about contrast, my studio reflects that; if my work is about calm, my studio is calm.  

     

I keep my working environment just as a stage in theater, set up conceptually.  That way I can have the total experience of my concepts.  Sounds silly, fake, or just too much?  Maybe, but it is how I do it and it works for me.  I can be playful, but when it comes to my work, which I consider my life's work, I am serious.

Over the course of nine or so posts, I am going to tell the stories of my 7 past studio spaces, most of which are interesting tales.  The Studios of my past have always been exactly what I need.  

Check back soon...
...something interesting is coming. 

Series of Paintings: "Improvisations"

Let's start off this blog with a look at my past in the arts. 

This series of paintings was created from 1997-1998, (I am really unsure as to the actual dates.)  These works were my first real attempt to study abstraction.  

In 1997 I was working at Starbucks on 50th and France Avenue.  I would paint some landscapes or still-lifes and bring them to work and show them off to all the costumers, who might I add were older wealthy house wives who love impressionistic works of art (of course they do, Van Gogh works of art are on coffee cups everywhere).  I actually loved that job, my coworkers were cool, fun to be with and honest, and its coffee man, seriously do I need to explain that?  So one day I just up and quit.  A costumer came in and asked for some cardboard boxes to move with.  I checked, but we didn't have any, and wow was she mad.  She threw her latte on the floor, screamed at me about how she called the day before and asked us to hold the old boxes for her... bla bla bla; what an entitled little cunt.  I wasn't mad, I just wanted something different so I handed the store keys to my GM and left. 

I went home that day and stared at my paintings I was working on at the time.  I was using acrylic paint then, and I was almost out.  I did have a box of old oil paints that my grandmother, Virginia, gave me years before, but no solvent and no brushes.  I did have a few palette knives I could work with. 

So after looking at the oil colors, three large blank canvases, and the palette knives, I just simply started putting oil paint on the canvas.  I worked for several days straight, until I had finished all of the paintings.  I worked on this series for the next year+ straight, completing 60+ canvases.  I only have records of 50 of them.

There is really no artist statement here.

Improvisation 1 "Minneapolis" 

oil on canvas

80" x 50"

Improvisation 2 "Beach" 

oil on canvas

50" x 80"

Improvisation 3 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

70" x 30"

Improvisation 4 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

12" x 12"

Improvisation 5 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 7 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

12" x 12"

Improvisation 8 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas 

12" x 12"

Improvisation 9 "Orange Stripes" 

oil on canvas

12" x 12"

Improvisation 10 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

12" x 12"

Improvisation 11 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

12" x 12"

Improvisation 12 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

12" x 22"

Improvisation 13 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

12" x 12"

Improvisation 14 "White Stripes" 

oil on canvas

12" x 40"

Improvisation 15 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 16 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 17 "Gold Stripes" 

oil on canvas

22" x 18"

Improvisation 18 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

12"x 24"

Improvisation 20 "Wine Label" 

oil on canvas

60" x 36"

Improvisation 21 "with Scratches" 

oil on canvas

50" x 50"

Improvisation 22 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

48" x 60"

Improvisation 23 "At the Opera" 

oil on canvas

50"x 50"

Improvisation 24 "Studio" 

oil on canvas

50" x 50"

Improvisation 25 "Squid City" 

oil on canvas

36" x 36"

Improvisation 26 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 27 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 28 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

48" x 24"

Improvisation 29 "Honkey Tonk" 

oil on canvas

40" x 70"

Improvisation 30 "Lighthouse a" 

oil on canvas

24" x 30"

Improvisation 31 "Lighthouse b" 

oil on canvas

24" x 48"

Improvisation 32 "Lighthouse c" 

oil on canvas

30" x 70"

Improvisation 33 "Loring park sky" 

oil on canvas

80" x 60"

Improvisation 34 "Northern Lights" 

oil on canvas

80" x 50"

Improvisation 35 "On the Other side of the Hill" 

oil on canvas

48" x 60"

Improvisation 36 "Lightning" 

oil on canvas

36" x 24"

Improvisation 37 "7 Sailboats" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 38 "Hut study" 

oil on canvas

22" x 18"

Improvisation 39 "Tree study a" 

oil on canvas

22" x 18"

Improvisation 40 "Tree study b" 

oil on canvas

12" x 12"

Improvisation 41 "Tree study c" 

oil on canvas

22" x 18"

Improvisation 42 "Tree study d" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 43 "The Tree in the park where the hore sleeps sometimes" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

Improvisation 44 "Beach at Night" 

oil on canvas

50" x 80"

Improvisation 45 "Thomas Cromwell and the King" 

oil on canvas

48" x 24"

Improvisation 46 "Saint George and the Dragon" 

oil on canvas

36" x 40"

Improvisation 47 "Waterspout" 

oil on canvas

20" x 60"

Improvisation 48 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

48" x 24"

Improvisation 49 "Untitled" 

oil on canvas

18" x 22"

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