I am blessed with a spectacular studio that overlooks the marsh with windows on 3 sides…lots of natural light, palm trees, Spanish moss and resurrection ferns dripping and hanging from live oak branches.
I’m not short on inspiration but what I am short on is wall space (because of said windows). This has been a challenge for me since we moved in and the one wall I do have is brick which is difficult to attach anything to. After researching several options, I finally made a request of my handy husband to help me solve this challenge.
Design wall’s that quilters use involve a lot of fleece and I’m not a quilter (although I dabble in quilting techniques) so I felt the expense and effort of all that were un-necessary. I also considered cork, again, a resource I didn’t want to waste especially since I planned to paint the wall to blend in…Finally I settled on inexpensive Fiberboard after realizing this is what is used in many schools (my studio at SCAD included) and it would be just the thing to help me go vertical…Here my handyman Mr. B puts the finishing touches on the painted fiberboard before handing it over for me to “play” with.
This piece of fiber board is 4′ x 6′ (cut down from 4′ x 8′) and was only $9. It sucks up paint like crazy so you might want to use a primer-sealer (like Kilz) so you don’t have to apply a million coats). We attached it to the wall with Washers (painted) and screws (into the morter-this brick was so hard it destroyed 2 of my husbands masonry bits).
What a delight it is to have a space to hang both design pieces I’m working on and inspiration for future work! Above and below are details of what’s now currently hanging on my wall. I’ve got quilt blocks I’m kind of stuck on (not knowing what to use them for or if I need to make more), indigo shibori, yarns, mixed media, photography and other bits of inspiration and work in various stages of finished/unfinished.
I’m by no means a minimalist but I don’t love it when my space is too visually cluttered. With this new wall hung I can corrall all sorts of things that have been floating around my studio into one space to feed my inspiration and allow me to step back and see the pieces that I’m stuck on from a different perspective. Do you have the luxury of a inspiration or design wall in your art or office space?
