Organize Archives

In the Studio with Elizabeth McKeever

July 25, 2013 by Heather Filed Under: Art, Home, In the Studio, Organize, Systems & Techniques

One of Elizabeth’s abstract paintings hangs in her home-studio

Today’s studio sneek peek is inside Charleston painter Elizabeth McKeever’s spaces. Elizabeth and I met about a year ago when I first moved to Charleston and reached out to form a local SCAD alumni group. She works with both abstracts paintings and more representational ‘objects’ such as landscapes and plein aire portraits at weddings! She works out of her home and a studio garage space as well as work “in the field”. I love this statement from her website; “I always return to paintings of objects from my life because my most profound realizations are often derived through everyday experience.” Well, that’s esactly what we are exploring in this series of interviews and I’m so excited to share a little bit of your process of working as an artist and how organizing both challenges you and helps to propel your creativity!

HKPS::Have you always known you were an artist?

EM:: I didn’t consider pursuing it as a serious career until after I was in college.

HKPS::What mediums do you work with?

EM::All, but primarily with oil paints for my fine art work, and latex based for commercial work.

HKPS::Where do you make Art and how big is your studio?

EM::I work in primarily two locations. My home office/studio is where I do most of my painting – but storage for supplies and larger projects also takes up half my garage.

HKPS::Do you consider yourself to be an organized person?

EM::Organization is critical to me, but challenging. I know that some of the problem is not factoring in time to restore ‘order.’ I find it draining when it gets messy. That’s part of the reason I have housekeepers who come twice a week.

HKPS::How or where did you learn your organizing habits and systems?

EM::I took a seminar from the Franklin Planner company as a high school student. Since then I’ve always made goal planning a part of my life. I have learned a lot from Julie Morgenstern and Stephen Covey.

HKPS::What creative cycles of organization/dis-organization affect your process? What are your observations about the process?

EM::My oil painting process is the neatest – probably because I work primarily in one location with it, and when I do paint at events or away from home, I have a very minimal set of items that are easy to transport and return.

I cannot focus unless things are put away but I have to continually remind myself that it is a working space – it’s not going to look perfect. Sometimes my six year old son will be in the studio with me and will add to the chaos (see the paperclips in the photo below hanging from my pencils? – his work!).

HKPS::Do you ever have problems locating specific materials you want to use?

EM::Tape measures, archived images and anything involving paperwork!

HKPS::Do you purge or declutter your supply stash on a regular basis (due to space or other constraints)?

EM::Earlier in my career I would save all kinds of ‘stuff’ because I knew I could use it to create something. Now I prefer to have more space and less ‘stuff.’ Plus I have the luxury of being able to buy something when and if I happen to need it. I purge every few weeks, but will do a major overhaul at least once a year. The studio is a fluid space. Storing large paintings also used to be a nightmare because I would have to shuffle items around on the walls of my house! I’ve managed to resolve that a bit by allocating space within where some large items might go. (like above my sofa)

HKPS::Do you have any systems, tools or tips for staying organized you would like to share?

EM::I use an online database system called Basecamp so that I can share project information with my gallery and my other clients and we can comment on the same project. For commercial work with Stealth I’ve organized all my paints by color. I also use Google Calendar.

HKPS::Do you give much thought to your artistic body of work in terms of historic value and the overall artistic legacy you will leave behind? How do you store/archive your work or records? If not why?

EM::Yes, I do give it a lot of thought but I also find it is also important for my own development. Being able to see old work and organize it categorically has helped me learn more about underlying themes and refine my artist statements.

Thank you so much Elizabeth for inviting us into your studio, providing us with the photo’s and explaining the way that organizing affects you as a working artist. Please check out her website for more information on her services and portfolio of work! I’ll be back with another artist ‘Inside the Studio‘ feature next month! If you missed any of my previous Inside the Studio posts please go back and take a look!

* Inside the Studio was my brainchild in 2011. There are a lot of popular studio features on the web and in magazines but I’m specifically interested in showing how organizational process influences the artists studio work. These photo’s are not styled and are typical of how the artists working studio looks. I request that each artist leave their space as it would be on a daily basis (just like I ask my clients). This series is meant to highlight how artist REALLY work rather than showing STYLED shots (popular in home and organizing magazines and blogs). I’m sure just like me, you are fascinated by the “behind the scenes” sneak peek into these artists working lives!

In the Studio with Erin G

June 27, 2013 by Heather Filed Under: Art, Home, In the Studio, Inspiration & Education, Organize, Systems & Techniques

Today’s sneak peek is in the studio with Erin G from Studio Piccolo. We met while working together as a textile designers at Mohawk Industries back in 2001. We’ve worked together in a creative industry, we’ve participated in collaborative art projects together and we’ve remained friends through several moves. Erin is truly an artist in my opinion (see her definition below), I’ve always admired her creative energy, passion and skills as a textile designer, seamstress and artist. She has a wonderful sense of funky style where she mixes found objects, textiles, drawing/painting and anything else that inspires her. She seems to always have something in the works. She is equally talented at creating functional art such as garments, accessories, cards and non functional art. She works like a mad woman at several textile design jobs but still manages to find time to make things in her spare time. She has produced an amazing volume of work in this spare time and last year I finally helped her get her Etsy shop set up…please check out her beautiful paper craft and textile mixed media work there or on her Facebook page!

Erin modeling an amazing Jacket she designed and created. Photo via TSVETY Fashion

At what age did you realize you were an artist? I don’t think I have ever realized that I was “an artist”. An artist is someone who does art most of the time. I work most of the time and do art when I get the chance. But, I knew from age 5-6 that I liked making things, drawing and painting, sewing and all things crafty. I try to incorporate a lot of it into everyday life, but “art” has never been what I am able to do with most of my time. I aspire and plan to be an artist when I don’t have to work so much!

What medium(s) do you work with? I have and will work with almost anything, but my favourite media are fabrics, papers, paints, dyes and found objects.

From top: Erin’s Sewing, Painting and Mixed Media stations.

Where do you make your art & how big is your space? In my home – pretty much all over it. I have a loft space upstairs that is the primary contained space for creativity such as painting, printmaking, collage and heavy duty sewing (industrial machine). But also part of my office is used for light duty sewing, computer art and supply storage. I also regularly use my kitchen table for everyday collage projects and my garage for dying and anything that requires hammering, stapling or noxious fumes.

Erin’s Art Loft studio space has great light and several “zones” for making her art.

Do you consider yourself to be an organized or not and why? I am not even remotely organized. When I begin a large project, I basically dig out the majority of what I think I’ll need, clear a space and spread it out so that it is handy. I can usually find the large items and basic supplies to complete a project, but often cannot find smaller items (such as collected ephemera and found objects) to finish the detail work. I know where mostly everything is, but I have a lot of small junk that just gets put into various tins, boxes, bags, and drawers that are hard to locate if they were put away over 6 months ago.

How/Where did you learn your organizing habits and systems? I picked up most of my organizing habits from family and friends. And with things that do not change on a regular basis, such as kitchen cabinets linen closets, desk drawers, I know where everything is because the items never change and always get put back in the same place. With items such as collected ephemera and interesting found objects that are added to daily, they don’t necessarily have “a place” so they end up just anywhere I happen to be at the time I file them.

What types of cycles have you notices in your working process? Are there certain phases of projects that are neater or more dis-organized? When starting a major project, I usually clean up a work area, put away all unnecessary stuff and organize the bulk of what I will be using in the project. Then I work, work, work, while the mess piles up.

What materials/tools do you find challenging to keep organized or locate when you need to use them? Small items 6″x6″ and smaller. They are of such different natures (beads, thread, metal items, plastic items, paper items, fabric swatches etc.) that I have not found any reasonable organizing system that does not take up a lot of space. Hence they get stashed in boxes and bags that need to be dumped out to find any particular thing.

Above: Several areas where Erin stores craft and artmaking supplies, a office closet with drawers and open shelves in her studio.

How often do you purge or declutter your supply stash due to space or other constraints? Not very often. I keep a lot of things because they inspire me to think about creating. Unfortunately I have a lot more things than I have time to create with those things!

Please describe how creative cycles of organization or dis-organization affect your creative process? The organization or lack of organization doesn’t really effect my creativity – the thought process and the inspiration. Too much disorganization makes it difficult to get through a project if it requires an extended period of time with many interruptions, because I tend not to clean up during or at the end of projects. I will usually leave the mess in place until the beginning of the next project or, if I am not yet inspired or I have some free time, I may take a leisurely cleaning adventure through my piles in order to start plotting the next thing or in anticipation of the fact that there eventually will be a next thing. Too much organization and cleanliness makes me feel a little guilty about making a mess again so I try not to be too awfully clean and organized. (e.g., As I said above, I keep an “art mess” on my kitchen table at all times in the event I just have to create something – anything! If I have to remove that mess when I have company come to visit and I see how nice and clean and proper the place looks without it, it makes me feel like I should relegate that mess to another space and keep the common areas clean for potential visitors. But, if I do that, I know I will not go to one of those other spaces to do a “quickie” because those other spaces are out of the way – there is no tv, there is no view, there is no sink, the light isn’t as good at night time etc. I like having my mess right there where I can cook and do laundry and other things in between working on an idea.)

Erins Dining room table with projects in various phases of completion.

Erin’s kitchen table, cleared for company I presume!

Thanks Erin, this was such a great interview! Despite her super busy schedule she managed to provided all the photo’s and talked me through the explanations behind each. She tried to put this interview off until she had a chance to share the “Post cleanup” pictures with me but I insisted that was not necessary! I love how honest and open Erin is about her creative process and her systems or lack there of for organization. She perfectly illustrates that sometimes creativity is fulled by chaos and there are some artists who really need to be surrounded by their stuff for making. I sincerely hope this interview will help some artists be a bit less judgemental of their own processes. By all means if it get to the point where the clutter is taking over the creativity…well then, it might just be time to do a little cleanup and purge. Can I ask y’all to help Erin know that she IS an ARTIST?! Thank you so much Erin for inviting us into your studio, providing us with the photo’s and explaining the way that organizing affects you as a working artist and designer. Please check out Erin’s Facebook Page for more information on her process and her Etsy site to make some lovely purchases of her pieces! I’ll be back with another artist ‘Inside the Studio‘ feature next month! If you missed my last Inside the Studio please take a look!

Wednesday Wellness::Your Decision Destiny

May 8, 2013 by Heather Filed Under: Inspiration & Education, Organize, Systems & Techniques

Do you have difficulty making decisions? We all do at times, promise! But for some of us it’s more difficult. There are several factors that hang us up in the process of decision making.

At worst decision making can feel overwhelming, anxious, impulsive and emotional. This can happen when we feel criticized and fall into default behavior such as perfectionism, compulsion, avoidance and procrastination which are ultimately forms of passive behavior.

“Our culture is a culture of getting. Perfectionism is taken as a sign of how good we are as getters. This preoccupation with rightness is a fanaticism…and it provides one of the quintessential post modern diseases: Stress.” -Dr. Fred Newman (Book:Let’s Develop)

At best we can feel empowered, passionate and energized by taking action! Now which would you prefer? No brainer.

So how can you take the difficulty out of decision making? It helps really understand what drives your passion and purpose. One of my favorite Authors, Danielle LaPorte shares her process of inviting her “Dominatrix of Decisions” to “Ride the Hedgehog“…Huh you say? Well, to simplify (if you don’t want to go read her in person) she employs her inner diva to guide her to what she really wants and she uses the “Three Circles of Hedgehog” to help her through the process.

Source: daniellelaporte.com via HKpowerStudio on Pinterest

If all that sounds a bit too weird for you I’ll break it down point by point in a way that will hopefully guide you to your Decisions from a place of true desire and destiny.

Eliminate unreasonable time and budget constraints that make you feel all panicky.
Limit the amount of input you are willing to consider (keep it simple, don’t ask for 20 estimates and 10 friends for their opinions!).
Prioritize between large and small decisions and rank their importance.
Try not to be overly emotional or dramatic; most situations are shades of grey not black & white as we can sometimes make them out to be.
Gather all the info and materials you need to help you make your decision in one place (a folder, box, basket or bag).
Use your personal values, instinct, gut and spirit guide to inform your decision.
Ask for help from someone encouraging who you trust (not 10 people!).

Source: Uploaded by user via Tiffany on Pinterest

Quick and Easy Living room Re-design

April 22, 2013 by Heather Filed Under: Art & Design, Home, Organize, Organizing Projects

Last week I had a fun and quick re-design job for an open living room dining room area. My client had recently inherited quite a few new pieces of furniture from a relative and had purchased a new sectional sofa. She was left with a mix of furniture in her open space that wasn’t functional and didn’t flow. I quickly assessed her needs as follows:

more living room seating for guests
a more functional and useable dining room area-for entertaining and daily use
integrate new furnishings with existing eclectic style
more seating for outdoor patio
too cluttered/crowded feeling

BeforeKW BeforeKW-1

Before the dining table was under the windows and when being used it obstructed the flow of the room. The chair next to the china hutch rarely got used and two additional chairs in the living room were pushed up against the wall across from the sofa and therefore felt quite separate from the living room space.

We relocated those chairs to the screened porch to make more room and give the outdoor space additional seating. The two large pieces of furniture on both ends of the rooms created a heavy feeling and on one end partially blocked light from a window. First, we moved the TV cabinet over to fill the large wall across from the sectional. This allowed more light in through the previously blocked window and made room for two additional seating areas on both sides of the tv cabinet using a couple of chairs and occasional tables already in the space. We also moved the sofa a bit to create space for the china cabinet on the wall behind it. By moving both the chair and the china cabinet we opened up the entire back wall (closest to the kitchen) for a clearly defined dining space that has ample room for entertaining.

The newly arranged living space has more seating but also feels intimate and cozy.

After-1 After

The room now feels more open and less cluttered and there are still two distinct spaces for living and dining.

Whenever I do a space re-design I advise clients to live with it for at least a week before deciding if there are things they really don’t like. As creatures of habit we get use to our things in a certain arrangement and it might feel awkward at first having things moved around within the space. Luckily in this case the client worked with me to move things and she seemed really happy with the results immediately. The following day she responded to an email I sent with this response; “I love it so much! The room feels bigger and I like my “things” more now too in the new arrangement.” This was a two hour project and the only expense for the client was my consulting/space planning fee. We did not buy one single thing!

Use what you have in new ways, move things around and create a totally new space!

Wednesday Wellness::How do you spell NO?

April 17, 2013 by Heather Filed Under: Productivity, Systems & Techniques, Wellness & Mindset

Confession time~I’m very guilty of not being good at saying no, just ask ANYONE who knows me (and some that don’t even know me well)…Guilty as charged! How do you spell NO? Especially when Yes can seems so much more fun!

Some people have a hard time saying no because they feel obligated or guilty. It’s helpful to pause when someone asks you to help with something and pay attention to what your gut/intuition is telling you. When I feel my shoulders start to slump or my gut start to rumble I know it’s time to back off. Are others being pushy, do people come to you because they have had past success suckering you into saying yes? If so then you may need to be on guard from the beginning! How do you spell NO?

Honestly though, my problem is that I just want to be involved in sooo many things…especially being new to my city.

Saying NO is a critical part of setting boundaries and creating priorities. Even when you feel like you are pretty good at doing this, you can always get better or take the time to check in with yourself before you say yes. Some people wait a few hours, sleep on it etc. Saying yes may be a set up for an all out attack against your most valued asset, your time!

Ultimately it comes down to making choices that are in alignment with your goals and dreams!

Learn to say NO so you can spend more time on the things you want to say YES to!

Resist temptations-Unsubscribe from emails or just delete them and if you are going through a particularly busy period let your friends and family know you can’t take anything else on right now.
Delegate, assign and let go of control in a kind but firm manner. Be appreciative that someone thinks enough of you to ask for your help but you might not be the right person.
Understand your boundaries-Don’t get caught on the spot and feel you have have an answer right away. It’s okay to say ‘Maybe I need to think about it’-defer decision making until you it feel right about it.
STOP and Focus on the big picture-is what you are about to agree to really in alignment with your big goals and will it make you happy?
Empathize and try to help find the right person or solution for the job when it’s not you (this goes back to delegating and deferring).
Practice, practice, practice saying no.

I believe in the power of SAYING YES, to the opportunities that are out there, to the universe, to new friends, to learning, trying new things, even things that make us uncomfortable and to helping others. This is why I say yes-because I’m a passionate, caring and helpful person-not out of obligation, guilt or shame. We will talk about the power and wellness behind saying yes another time.