POST #153: CHEAP SPACE

As I mentioned in my last post (#152), I have a great workspace purchased a half century ago from an Art Deco mural painter. The only reason we could afford it was because it was (and still is) a ‘handyman’s special’ and we were willing to be the handymen.

This brings me to a favorite theory: “no artists’ space is ever big enough.” It’s like we can’t help hungering for more room. Even though I love the studio in my house, the workspace of my dreams is an abandoned early 20^th century factory, an entire floor with giant windows on either side, a large track down the middle that would hold huge canvases and a performance space at the far end. I’d put a sofa bed and a kitchenette near the door so I could live with my work, painting in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, space like that doesn’t exist any more – unless you are willing to move to Norwich, CT or an abandoned textile mill in Rhode Island or the wilds of New Hampshire. 

A few years ago, some friends and I looked at a vacant c1920s hotel in Stamford that had been converted to Class D office space nobody seemed to want. We thought we could pool our money, buy it, remove the partitions and use it for loft living. It was a great idea; I’d have Curley’s next door and could buy a meal plan. However, when we looked at the spaces, we realized that most of the windows were blocked – or were going to be blocked - by new fifteen story buildings. The one permanent view was of Columbus Park – good – but not good enough. Pass.

Areas like Fairfield County are particularly hard on artists. You only have to look at the tiny cubbies the Loft Artists have settled for (and they’re not cheap): boxes, the size of a guest room. This is especially galling when you remember that they started out in a poor artists’ paradise, the ruins of the old Yale & Towne Lock Factory in the South End of Stamford, Thirty unused buildings: low rent, no amenities, unsafe after dark, unclean communal toilets down the hall, BUT with 15’ ceilings and huge industrial windows with great views on all sides. A three-bedroom apartment in the now “restored” complex along Henry Street rents for around $4,000 a month and is the size of my former $250 a month loft! You can barely fit a bed and a dresser in the bedrooms. There’s still some reasonably priced space to be had in Bridgeport or Port Chester or Norwalk but you can’t legally live there and what are you going to do if you feel like working in the middle of the night? Come down in your pajamas? Would you dare even step out of your car?

A corollary to my “no artists space is ever big enough” theory is my observation that “the size of artwork expands to fill all available space.” Small studio = Small work. BIG studio: the sky’s the limit. It’s not just the size of the walls, but you need room to step back to look at what you are doing.

What set me off on this topic is my current situation. You won’t believe me, but I feel as if I’m outgrowing my present studio! I now crave a space where I can paint 20’ canvases or do theatrical performances with my cutouts on the overhead projector. Plus, given the current political scene, I’d like to take my “Developer” series out of the attic: a dozen giant cardboard cutouts based on the gross moguls I dealt with over the years (surrounded by wives, ex-wives, offspring, lawyers, land use consultants, accountants, politicians and thugs.) Wait ‘til you see how prescient I was! They are begging to tell their story!

 I’m currently reading a book called “INVENTING DOWNTOWN: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City 1952-1965”. It’s the catalogue for a show held last year at the Grey Gallery at NYU. I even broke down and bought it ($60), something I rarely do since I have hundreds of art books I haven’t gotten around to yet. It’s about a period in New York, the fifties and sixties, when groups of struggling artists working in places like the Lower East Side banded together to open co-op galleries in tenement apartments and empty storefronts. Many of them later became rich and famous but got their start there. I was busy changing diapers at the time and missed the scene (no regrets, however.) On several occasions though, I did manage to get to visit shows where artists I knew from student days exhibited. When the book describes where and how they lived and worked, you will better understand how critical Cheap Space is to creative growth.

POST #152: THE PRESSLESS PRINT

The summer before I got married, I took a course in woodblock printing at Pratt Graphic Center in Manhattan. The class was taught by a print maker I greatly admired, Antonio Frasconi. He and I had similar ‘sensibilities,’ favoring expressiveness over abstraction and during the two months I was in his class I produced several fairly successful small woodblocks. The problem for me with woodcuts was that carving large-sized blocks required physical strength I simply did not have. When I did go back to printmaking a decade or so later after my children were born, I worked with something called Battleship Linoleum, easier to handle on a large scale. I have no idea where it got its name; maybe one of my readers can tell me. It came in three-foot rolls that I cut into blocks, the size of my kitchen table. Even better, I discovered that if I ran my electric iron on Low over the surface while I worked, the material softened to a butter-like consistency that allowed me to carve large, expressive prints with a minimum of physical effort.  Since I didn’t have a press, I learned how to print

Japanese style, inking the block with a rubber brayer and then pressing a wood spoon or a baren over the paper to transfer the ink. It was a ‘hit or miss’ proposition but somehow it worked most of the time. Over a few years, I created a half dozen prints I was really proud of and then, without warning, the magic was gone. Nothing worked. No matter how much I warmed the block, cutting became a struggle and the blocks looked clumsy and lacked “flow.” After several failed attempts, I gave up printmaking and went back to painting where at least I could control my material. It wasn’t until years later when I told a fellow printmaker my story that I learned that the problem was in the material, not my skill. According to him, there was an ingredient in the original linoleum called Kaori gum came from an ‘endangered’ specie of tree and was no longer available. How could I have known?

Around two years ago, I finally went back to printmaking, only this time on the computer. I accidentally discovered that if I printed photos of my collages or drawings onto sheets of overhead projector acetate and mounted them on toned paper, they looked like etchings or engravings. Once you matted and framed them, they appeared to be “the real thing.” My friend Priscilla who taught printmaking at SUNY Purchase for twenty years, told me I had invented a new printing  technique. I’m now frantically producing prints, putting them in mats and thrift shop frames and giving them to friends. My big fear is not that someone will copy my technique, but that my printer will break down and the new model will no longer get the same results. Happens to me all the time. Technology giveth and technology taketh away.   

Happy New Year    

Renee Kahn