Through the years we always used our kitchen or dining room table for creative work or projects. There’s something so enveloping about being in the center of family life and activity – except when meal times roll around. Then it’s a pain… because you have to pile your stuff up and put it somewhere while your loved ones chow down. Then we changed our thinking!
It’s now been quite a few years since we came across a magazine called – ‘Where Women Create’. We breathlessly flipped through the pages and literally devoured that premiere issue the day we spotted it on the newsstand at Indigo. After we bought it we went to a little coffee shop to drool through the pages and savour all the sentiments expressed by the women who were part of the magazine’s articles.
What we found were page after page of intricate, detailed creative niches that captured the passions and interests of these makers and creators. Arranged in useful and decorative ways, the studios and work spaces reflected the personalities and artistic styles of these innovative women. You could see and feel how the work areas could inspire and generate the creativity required to bring to life the ideas and tangible projects they were working on.
We knew that this was something we needed to have permanently in our lives. We needed a studio space that was only meant for bringing to life things we wanted to make or ideas we were percolating. We needed a space into which ideas could flow.
We’ve now had many studio spaces through the subsequent years. Our current studio has space for sewing, paper distressing and inking, beading, leather making, packaging products and just plain old sitting and being. We found chairs on Kijiji. Erin’s’ partner Jean made us a big work table that is large enough for workshops and spreading our materials out on. We have some early 20th century cabinets and some newer Ikea ones painted to look old. It’s still a work in progress as we’ve only been in this house for a few months. We’ll keep you updated because we have some chalk paint and some pieces that we’ll be transforming soon.
So the point we want to make is this – if you create a space that you love, (it doesn’t need to be big) that is yours alone to decorate and bling out, that allows you to bring forth and channel your ideas… you will find that a vein of creativity will open up that you maybe didn’t know was available to you and for you. We are proof of it. So do it and see what happens!
Live wholeheartedly. Live prairie.
– Jan and Erin
Two prairie girls
