March/April 2021
Selected works from Michelle Weinberg’s project Artists Draw Their Studios are on view at Hudson Park Library.
Works by Dimitry Chamy, Amanda Church, Elisabeth Condon, Joana Fischer, Theresa Hackett, Kirstin Lamb, Laura Newman, Nora Riggs, Leslie Roberts, Bonnie Rychlak, Rachel Urkowitz, Josette Urso, Michelle Weinberg
Inspired by her own occasional drawings made of her studio with works in progress, artist Michelle Weinberg has embarked on an ongoing project to collect drawings by other artists of their studios. Artists Draw Their Studios is presented by Available Space is here, the artist’s platform for presenting and facilitating artistic initiatives.
The first exhibition of Artists Draw Their Studios took place in Hollywood, Florida at the Art and Culture Center in Fall 2019. An upcoming exhibition is scheduled in October 2021 at the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts, Woodtock Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock, NY.
The drawings demonstrate the diverse ways that artists perceive their own work places and lives.
What is a workplace like when the conventional definitions of work and play don’t apply? At a moment when art districts are tourist destinations and artworks operate like financial instruments in a booming art market, Artists Draw Their Studios is an opportunity for the public to appreciate the intimate and eccentric relationships artists have with their own workplaces. No guidelines have been given other than that the works be predominantly drawing. Artists at different stages of their careers have been invited to participate. Some drawings are observational, others conceptual representations of a studio. Some studios may be traditional, with easels and paint-spattered rags, others may be virtual, existing only in electronic format. Some artists are always on the move, others in long-term situations tethered to their home lives. Nomadic, co-working, and telecommuting work styles have up-ended our pictures of work and workspaces across society. A pressurized directive for everyone to be more entrepreneurial has ratcheted up stress and erased boundaries of work and home, public and private. Artists Draw Their Studios will reveal how the ultimate self-directed “workers” inhabit their spaces.
The artists selected to participate in the Hudson Park Library exhibition have all experienced new and profound reckonings of their studio lives during this historic pandemic.
pictured above: Laura Newman, Rome Studio