Creative Ideas For Creative Spaces

Being an artist is not an easy job, no matter your medium. Finding the inspiration for new work is a full-time job in and of itself, never mind the business of turning that inspiration into art and that art into income. It's a complex and delicate process at the best of times that can be derailed by the smallest distractions: a child coming in at just the wrong time, a phone call from just the wrong person, or a missing paintbrush that leads you to clean your whole studio in the hunt. This is exactly why it's so important to have a space in your life that's just for your art, and for that space to be just so. Whether it's a painter's studio or a writer's office, everyone needs what Virginia Woolf called "A Room of One's Own."

Light and Space

When you're looking for a place where you can work, you want to pay special attention to light and space. If you're making any kind of visual art, maximizing natural light is almost as important as the actual medium you use to create art. If you're developing your own photography or editing video together on a screen, then you might need the opposite and seek out space where you can find complete darkness. Whether you need a miniature circuit breaker for all the necessary lights or you just need heavy curtains to plunge the whole room into darkness, light and space are the blank canvas that you can create your best creative workspace on.

Fully Stocked

Different media have different associated equipment. For a writer or poet, that might be a computer or pen and paper. For artists using traditional media, that might mean paint and canvas. For digital artists, that might be an elaborate set of screens and a digital drawing tablet. Whatever you need, you want to make sure that it is easy to lay hands on when you are in your space.

Organization

Once you've chosen an ideal space and gotten it set up with everything you need, it's wise to make sure you can find everything easily. It's no good having every shade of paint under the sun if you can't find it when you need it. This goes double for computers. If your art is digital, you want to make sure that you can find all your files easily without getting distracted by old works in progress or shiny new projects. Distraction is the enemy of productivity.

Peace

Most artists require some peace and quiet to maximize that productivity. For music artists and anyone who works with sound, that might mean literal soundproofing in your creative space, but even for those who don't work with sound, it's a good idea to at least close the door while you're working. Sometimes, finding the peace and quiet you need in order to work means setting some pretty strict boundaries with friends and family. It can take some negotiation, but your art and your time deserve respect both from you and from the people you love.

A Little Chaos

That said, art is not always a peaceful process, and anything that has a little life is a little chaotic. Leave yourself a little room to breathe and play in your creative spaces. A whiteboard to doodle on can help unlock your creative brain, and a yoga mat to do some quick workouts on might be a great idea, just to get the blood pumping and the ideas flowing again. A creative space should be just that; creative. Fill it with things that you love, things that inspire you, even if it is a little messy.

Art is a strange hybrid of hard work and just a little magic. Creating a space that makes it easy to make art, that's half the battle. Having space just for your creative work helps to remind you that your art is important; it deserves your attention, your time, and the best space you can design for it.