Since mid-February, I've been on a purging binge in my studio. Being a mixed media artist with a tiny studio space, my collections and hoardings have become way out of hand in the last couple years. It's all fine and well to amass many things as a mixed media artist, but the reality comes when I realize I don't use most of it. Even if I'm keeping it around for when inspiration strikes, usually breaking it all out and making a colossal mess, generally results in a feeling of personal overwhelm. Then I clean it all up because my space is small. I like a tidy workspace. Don't get me wrong, in the throes of creativity, I'm super messy, as it should be for me....but my habits are to clean it all up when I mess up every surface and then find myself working on the floor in a tiny 2 ft. space.
I have great plans of renovating and sprucing up this space in the fall when we return from our summer time in North Carolina....so I've been taking time each week to sort, to sell on ebay and privately, to carry "treasures" to the flea market, but I want things to be very clean and trim and lean and mean. I've passed the point in my life where I need to keep collecting things, and I'm happy to work with what I have in the moment.
It's taken me several days of each week for the last 3+ months, but now I'm seeing some headway and it's looking good!
How do you work? Do you like to hoard things? Do you like a sparse creative space? What makes you personally feel most creative?
