To have a sacred place is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so, where you do not know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody or what they owe you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.
—Joseph Campbell
The short post below is from a bout five years back as is the panoramic photo above. The studio looks pretty much the same today though there is a constant shifting of the work on the walls, for the most part. I’ve worked in this space for about 16 years now and it has truly transformed from a workspace into what I think of as a sacred space, like that which Campbell describes.
I was thinking about my studio and how it influences the work I do. Its size sets some limitations on how large I can work and I sometimes wish I had twenty-foot ceilings where I could do massive canvasses. But that mild complaint does little to take away from how wonderful a space it has been in which to work on a daily basis.
It is comfortable and warm with views that look out on a very private yard with mature trees, several huge rhododendrons and a constant parade of wildlife. It has room to work with a large, well-appointed basement for framing and prepping my surfaces. One of the three bedrooms serves as a library and the other two hold paintings and papers. The stone fireplace that I face most of each day in my main space gives me an elemental, grounded feeling and the light that streams muted by the trees provides a coolness to play off the warmth of the space.
The seclusion it offers is all I could ask for. My large front window looks out on the driveway that curves gently in and whenever I see anyone coming in, it almost feels like an affront, like an invasion into my private world that I see as an extension of the internal one that provides the landscapes I paint. My studio complements that inner world so well, creating a sacred space for me to hopefully bring forth what I am and what I might be, as Joseph Campbell points out in the quote at the top.
It might be the one place on this earth where I feel completely at ease. Not always, but most of the time.
I thought I’d share a shot today of the studio, my sacred space, in all its cluttered glory. It has come to reflect me and I, it.
-2018
[2023] Looking at the photo from several years past, I noticed that the image on the television was the opening title credits for the film It’s a Wonderful Life. I don’t recall if that was intentional at the time but it made me smile today. Since we’re looking back, here’s an old favorite from Jeffrey Gaines that I haven’t heard in a while. It speaks very much of the Hero’s Journey so associated with Joseph Campbell. This is The Hero in Me.
Redtree Times 