my studio before and after

Soon after My studio was featured in "where women create" I knew I had a problem. I was just getting ready to work on my fabric book and I had the need to have more table space for working with fabric so I got a cutting table that I did not have room for and shoved it in a corner up against some book shelves. Now last year Kelly B. Helped Kristen Robinson move a few things in her space and I was blown away by how moving a few things around Kelly gave Kristen so much more working space.  For almost a year now Kelly has been after me to let her come over and help re-organize my space. I knew things were bad and that they were not working however I had not the time I knew it was going to take to do the job right.




but over the last few weeks I made the time and Kelly and I took just about everything out of my space I purged and got rid of things I knew I would never really use.
a few weeks ago I posted this video to face-book for all to see my mess, my hell...
really how can any one be creative in such a mess?

Before:


I think most creative types tend to be collectors and hunter gatherers by nature creating mixed media art and storing things that inspire us to create can turn into more of a job then the art it self.
when my work shifted to mostly fabric I found the need to have a spacial place to cut and store it. This transition took over my once workable space and I knew that things had to change as I was flustered and blocked by the flow of my surroundings. so now after a few weeks of hard work I can share with you my newly organized space.

After:


a few things that have helped me along the way:

• Get some help: Truly I could not have done my studio on my own I needed Kelly's fresh eyes to help me to see the way out of the chaos that I had created.
• Give your self some time: I started out thinking that it could all be done over the weekend but the truth was that purging is mentally exhausting so after two full days of cleaning and tossing stuff out we took a break for a few days before we started again.
• Ask your self this question over and over again: "would I buy this again?" this really helped me the most at the end it was getting so hard I did not want to toss out one more thing I wanted to stop at about the half way point but my mother told me to ask myself if I would buy it again and the words really did help.
• Know how you work and make your space work for you: when Kelly first came over I told he what was and what was not working for me. My bead storage worked fine it did not need to be touched however my sewing stuff was a huge mess and needed a lot of help. I knew that a large shelving unit that I had and a wooden cabinet was not working and it could leave the space, moving these pieces out freed up space for me to have room on the wall for my cutting table thus freeing up a lot of shelf space that was being blocked by this table.
• Choose the type of storage that works best for you: I need to see my stuff for me its "out of site, out of mind" so I went with plastic tubs and bins, I also found that labels were also helpful.

A BIG Thank you to Kelly for all her hard work and help! not to mention putting up with me day after day! it was a priceless gift you gave me!
I hope you will enjoy the next few video's that follow this post of my space as I share with you some of the details of my studio.

my studio before and after