Welcome to the 239th installment of A View From the Easel, a series in which artists reflect on their workspace. This week, artists delight in the texture of oil paint, draw on a collection of found objects, and cultivate a “personal calligraphy.”
Want to take part? Check out our submission guidelines and share a bit about your studio with us through this form! All mediums and workspaces are welcome, including your home studio.
Eugenie Diserio, Stamford, Connecticut
How long have you been working in this space?
Almost nine years.
Describe an average day in your studio.
I’m really an afternoon studio person. Though I do get up early, I like to quietly drink coffee, make a to-do list for the day and days ahead, browse the news, and make sure my Instagram posts and captions coming up are all accurate. I take my dog on a long walk and then usually head off for a yoga, pilates, or barre class. By early afternoon I go down to my home studio and sit on the couch and look around at all the work in progress. I let the work tell me whether it needs more or is done. Sometimes, I listen to music or podcasts, but most often I work in silence, letting the music come from my own soul and intuition. Often, the most free and vibrant sounds are found in quiet and stillness.
How does the space affect your work?
My studio space is always quiet and peaceful. I get used to the sound of planes flying overhead and distant neighbors doing yard work. There is a door to the outside that I keep open when the weather is good. Then, I hear the sounds of nature like birds and rustling leaves. The largest canvas size I have worked on here is 48 by 72 inches. I don’t have a lot of free wall space and usually start larger painting flat on the floor, dancing around the canvas, splattering and pouring paint, then mark-making into the surface with personal calligraphy — scribbling, squeegeeing, and scraping. Eventually, I’ll put a canvas onto an easel and work into the details. Then, it goes back on the floor to incorporate glitter, crystals, and metallics to create reflective surfaces that sparkle in the light.
How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?
The main environment outside is that of nature. There is a vibrant art community in the city of Stamford where I live and in the many other towns of Fairfield County, Connecticut. I am connected to many of these art associations and show my work regularly in their exhibitions.
What do you love about your studio?
It’s peacefulness and solitude. It’s convenience in that I do not have to travel somewhere else to work.
What do you wish were different?
Not much right now. I am happy where I am. Sometimes, I see other people’s studios in big loft-like industrial spaces and wonder what it would be like to work there, but any intense driving distance and traffic make for stress!
What is your favorite local museum?
The Katonah Museum of Art in nearby Westchester County, New York. I saw the show Sparkling Amazons: Abstract Expressionist Women of the 9th St. Show which remains unforgettable to me. Seeing the work up close and personal of painters I so admire like Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, and Elaine DeKooning, to name a few, was unforgettable.
What is your favorite art material to work with?
Acrylic paint, gel mediums, glitter, gold and silver leaf, and crystals.
Kathleen Strukoff, Palm Springs, California
How long have you been working in this space?
Eight months.
Describe an average day in your studio.
I am in my studio almost every day but I fit it in with other important things in my life: pickleball, biking, hiking, laundry, etc. I often work on several things at once. My mind is always swirling with new ideas to try. I am a prolific painter so just having space for my new creations is a big challenge. I often listen to audiobooks while I paint.
How does the space affect your work?
I always need more space so I am thinking about repainting over canvases, how to not store big canvases or frames … so it definitely impacts what I am working on. But I can ride my bike or walk to my studio and that is fab!
How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?
My studio is in the oldest art district in Palm Springs: the Backstreet Art District. It is a small group of about 12 to 15 artists. Some prefer to be solo but there are a handful who love to have a sense of community and we feed off each other. A few years ago I started an artist salon to meet once a month with a very loose agenda and mostly to get to know each other and trade ideas. Every month we meet at a different artist’s studio and it has been a great way to grow our community. Some good things have come out of it in terms of shows, an art guide website, etc.
What do you love about your studio?
Great view of the mountains, great studio partners, and that I can bike or walk to my studio!
What do you wish were different?
More storage space.
What is your favorite art material to work with?
I love the texture and juiciness of oil paint. I get excited every time I squeeze it out onto my palette.
Cianne Fragione, Washington, DC
How long have you been working in this space?
Twenty-three years.
Describe an average day in your studio.
Each day, I drive from my home in Virginia to my studio in Washington, DC. I transfer myself from brick walls, graffiti, and loud sidewalk conversations, and step into an illuminated three-dimensional experience of texture and color that I have created. I usually arrive by 10am (traffic is terrible) and stay the entire day. I set the stage by putting on music. Poetry and music are united in the working process. Right now, it is Taranta music; like Montale’s poetry, it is invested with anguish, sorrow, and joy, a human journey of transformation and redemption. But when I am deep into the work, I no longer hear music, as it is pure muscle memory. I can often start with what I call “warm-ups,” more as a concept than as a self-limiting description, based on my earlier training as a professional dancer. Pages are often torn out of books — poetry, art books, literary texts — and reworked quickly with oil paint sticks. I am a process artist. I work on multiple pieces and bodies of work concurrently, including oil paintings, drawings, and sculpture or assemblage. The work is abstract, but I do begin with something real. This gives me a starting point, a space from which to proceed as I enter the painting process. It is a substance that connects the eye, hand, imagination, and, of course, the paint itself.
How does the space affect your work?
The studio is a place where objects and artifacts gather. I keep collections of Italian lace among the pigments, brushes, and palettes, along with recovered fragments from marble altars, torn older works, photos, and an abundant array of objects I have gathered over many years. The use of assemblage and collage are integral to my practice, allowing me to incorporate evocative found objects with traditional fine art materials that together express a love of beauty, rawness, and the femininity that occurs in everyday life. There is one window in my studio that is cracked and broken, and I have layers of plastic on it to keep the studio warm, of course! I don’t change this particular window because I draw from it. The morning light tends to be too bright here, so by diffusing it like this, I get a soft light that is lovely. When I work at night and the lights are on, the darkness from the window is like a whisper. My environment affects me. I don’t try to control that.
How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?
I’ve lived in this area since 2001 and have seen many changes. Sadly, DC doesn’t have many spaces for artists, and I’ve noticed many of them disappearing due to development and gentrification affecting both artists and neighborhoods. When I arrived, this three-story brick building was home to about 12 artists. It was a small community. Over time, the building has changed, and now it’s home to around 50 artists. I love that the artists in this building come to work. The building does foster a sense of community, but it’s the personal connections with individuals that matter. There’s a great mix of artists from DC, Virginia, and Maryland, and despite the distance, it does feel interconnected. This creates a broader community, and the many museums in the area also play a significant role in the lives of us artists.
What do you love about your studio?
I’ve been in my studio for 23 years, which speaks for itself. The light and space, the beauty and rawness of this place, provide a certain cohesion. And I am very lucky to have a garage where I can park and walk straight to my studio doors.
What do you wish were different?
More heat in the winter.
What is your favorite local museum?
The National Gallery of Art.
What is your favorite art material to work with?
I use whatever tools and materials are needed to make the work happen. For decades, I have loved using oil paints and mostly make my own paints. The world can provide you with all kinds of unexpected tools, materials, and points of departure.
