Studio

This is what my studio looks like:

The kimono hanging on the wall was mine when I was little. My parents brought two back from Japan and my sister and I used to run around in them but we couldn't keep them on properly so we had to have pants underneath. My Grandma Magda painted the watercolor of quince blossoms. I have a lot of her work around the house. She died a few years ago at 92. I hope I got those long-life genes but not the dementia ones. My daughter made the cut-paper bunny and woman. The winged scupture in the corner is called "A Prayer for my Children" and I made it years ago when they were little and I was more of an assemblage artist. If you're curious I'll post photos of it.

The tripod is standing on top of my flat files (art and paper storage):

The bag hanging from it is a counterweight; since my camera-and-lens combination weighs about 4 pounds the horizontal arm can be a bit tippy. The glowing white area is a home-made lightbox, which is built out of five pieces of foam core and a piece of white plexiglass. It has four lights inside it. More photos of that here. You can also see the pieces of foam core set up as reflectors when I'm photographing. They slide down behind the box when I'm not. Those blobby things are construction lamps wrapped in white fabric to light the pieces from the top (the fabric diffuses the glare.)

And here's my "darkroom." I use Photoshop Elements and Lightroom, and am a huge fan of Macs. I have some respiratory challenges, so will never go back to using film and working in a chemical darkroom.

 I cheated and cleaned the room before photographing it. It never looks this tidy! And, in fact, at the moment I am renovating and it is utter chaos.