As writers, we may be able to write in a bustling café, on a crowded kitchen table, in a cave with poor lighting, even in the shower with the right tools . But if we did have an artists’ studio, with perfect lighting, wouldn’t we be able to write even better?
Bonus point: all those paintings/illustrations/pictures are really inspiring! But perhaps, after a while, you just get so used to them hanging around on your walls that you no longer see them. Over at dVerse Poets, Björn has us re-examining the familiar, disassociating ourselves from it, so that we can see it with fresh eyes once more. I’ve chosen the third of Tolstoy’s techniques – use of dialect or a foreign language – to create this sense of ‘strangeness’.
Tablouri, desene, întinse pe jos,
pe pereţi, o dezordine în care nu găseşti
şi nu gândeşti
nimic
decit inspiraţie.
Nani? Hontoo?
Bitte schwätz langsamer…
(Just playing around in Romanian, Japanese and Swiss German. Translation is roughly: Paintings, sketches, scattered on floors, on the walls, a mess in which you can find and think nothing but inspiration. What? Really? Please talk more slowly…)
Great pics. Not sure which one’s my favourite. Perhaps the studio for wildlife illustrator.
Hard to choose, right? The middle two are my favourites, perhaps because I do like a bit of order in my chaos…
Middle two are my favorites too!
I love the light coming from the glass roof in #3! We have lots of 19C buildings with artists’ ateliers and large glass panels on top floors in our neighborhood, I always look at those with envy (but I console myself thinking that their heating bill must be sky-high and they’ll never get those windows clean).
That’s right – be all prosaic and practical when the green-eyed monster of envy comes knocking at your door!
There are some fabulous ones at Barons Court in London (now immortalised in ‘The Silkworm’ by JK Rowling).
http://www.theworkhome.com/precedents/st-pauls-studios-barons-court-london/
I’d love my own den to write in (I share an office and a partners’ desk with my husband; my writing friends are astonished I get anything done). An artist’s studio would fit the bill nicely and imagine the inspiration you’d get from those paintings! Like you, though, I do wonder if the novelty would wear off after a while.
Marina Sofia – Oh, those studies look great! I want the wildlife illustrator’s one especially. And your poem is an interesting take the whole use of space for creation – I like it!
Definitely had me wondering, so thanks for the translation!
This is such an inspiration, Marina! To have a studio is itself a 50% head start in the sub-conscious to start painting. Georgie’s is cool and clear. It provides the pull factor to go forward! Thanks for sharing!
Hank
Funny, we both did a foreign language spin on that.
Great pics, thanx. Fun poem
Clutter colour and beautiful objects are essential for a creative environment I think.
I like 1 and 4
I think that’s what my poem is hinting at… But my aspirational self likes 2 and 3.
haha… of course i love the inclusion of swiss german here… and i dunno if a nice studio makes someone a better artist… i prefer writing in a cafe or a tram stop to writing in a studio just on my own…
Ah, but to my procrastinating self, it’s a great balm… if only I had such a place… if only I had more time… if only everything were perfect in my life… then just imagine the masterpieces I might produce!
Like Claudia, I do not own a studio either but like to write or sketch wherever I am. I enjoyed the photos though. I only understood the Swiss German so thank you for the translation.
i usually jump ‘write’ to the pictures and the first thing i thought was OMG that’s all your house.. and you must have an incredibly BUSY MIND..:)
AND yes.. we humans can be so silly collecting so many things and forgetting we have them until we lose them….
It’s so much easier not to have them.. as the Zen folks say..:)
Ah, I wish it were all my house… but yes, I find myself even taking the gorgeous mountain views for granted on some days. Until they go missing in cloud and fog for a week or so – then I appreciate them anew!
Your poem is, as the saying goes, “Greek to me.” But I enjoyed the photos of the artists’ studios.
Somehow I think a great studio might be more of reward than a true source of inspiration.. the languages are interesting.. somehow they all seem slightly familiar yet distant.. the german I definitely did get.
Yes, that’s it – something to aspire to – once you’ve done all the hard work!
I’ll take one… so much creativity here
Well you took on the foreign language challenge brilliantly. I shall memorize the last line in case I EVER finally get to go to Germany! I love listening to the sounds I made up for the words and appreciate their translation – a brilliant crafty answer to the prompt!
Well. it might get you some strange looks in Germany – it’s not a very common expression there, more of a Swiss German dialect thing.
Top pic reminded me of my PC desk, a desk with handy shelves to clutter up with books, scraps of thoughts and suchlike.
I live clutter – unless I am try to locate something…
Anna :o]
It reads quite poetically in English, too. Thanks for translating and not leaving me twirling in a scary forest of the unfamiliar!
If I sat in that black comfy chair my notebook would fall from my lap, my pen would roll across the floor and zzzzzzzzzz!
I once saw a writer’s study with a sofa. Nice thought, but it would probably be deadly for me – even if just for the reading marathons I’d have there.