Welp, the queen and I have decided to leave the studio at Winter Street and explore other art avenues. I can't say it was a hard decision. With the maintenance fees going up we thought it was a good time to go.
Back in 2018 the studio we're now in opened up. It was supposed to be me and the queen as knittingbuddha studio, but it didn't take too long for the the fiber part to completely consume the space. I had a few pieces hanging, but otherwise it was all about the fiber.
Then the big explosion of December 2022 happened. One of the photo studios was firebombed by an angry client/collaborator (?), I'm not sure which. Several studios were heavily affected by the explosion and fire while the rest of the building was infiltrated by smoke and soot. It covered everything, many artists lost an entire studio worth of work.
We returned in October of 2023 and decided to give it a year. The building was updated and everything looked great. At first the queen thought she might not want to return, but we did, and this time around we split the studio with the caveat that fiber would not overcome everything.
We didn't have high expectations, at the very least make rent every month. We were able to do that for a few months but there just haven't been as many people coming through lately. In reality, just making rent isn't really good enough, so we've decided to end this art chapter.
The best part about this experience was meeting some of the artists in our building and being around art and artists all day. It was well worth it to make those connections.
So, we're going to turn the house into studio, work from home, and sell our stuff at various art and fiber festivals. It was nice to have a dedicated studio, but I'd rather take that monthly rent and pour it into other art adventures.
Onward!
F I T Z