my studio is 4 square meters and the kiln sleeps in the kitchen
People always ask to see the studio like it's this beautiful light-filled workshop. It's a corner of my flat in Ruzafa, 4 square meters if I'm generous, and my little kiln is wedged on a table next to the tostadora because it's the only circuit in the piso that won't trip. So when I fire, the whole flat smells like hot dust and I can't make toast for 8 hours. My abuela came over Sunday, looked at everything, and asked if the kiln was "a new appliance for the family." I said sí, the most expensive one.
What I actually like about it: I can't spread out. So I build small. Small means I try more things, and when one dies in the firing I'm sad for maybe ten minutes then I'm already building the next. Last week I lost two faces to a glaze that came out like wet cement. But the third one, the mouth cracked open in a way I could never plan. That one's on the shelf looking at me.
Anyway. Curious how much space everyone else actually has, because I keep seeing these huge studios online and I need to know if I'm the only one firing next to the breakfast
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Your abuela asking if the kiln is a new appliance for the family, that is very sweet ji. My own mother used to say the same of my colours and papers, that I was bringing home more family members.
Four square meters is not so small when the work is done with heart. In our Mithila painting we also work on the floor, spread on old cloth, and everything must be put away at night because the same room is for sleeping. When there is no space to spread, the hand becomes more sure, I feel. You build small, but small is also how the old forms were kept alive in our villages, on small paper, small cloth, whatever was there.
Wishing you many good firings, and may the toast be worth the wait.
The "no space to spread so the hand becomes more sure" thing is true but I would push on it a little. I spent a decade teaching in a big shared atelier, plenty of room, and most of what people did with all that space was avoid decisions. But the smallness only helps if you are actually working. Four square meters with no light and a kiln that smells the flat up will just as happily teach you to make the same safe little thing forever. The constraint does something only when there is a real eye behind it. Which in your case, from the sound of it, there is. Voilà, nothing against you, I just don't want the cramped room to get the credit.
Also, a kiln that costs more than any appliance and smells like hot dust, and your abuela accepts it as a family member. That is a good family.
Vale, you got me with the "avoid decisions" thing. That's the part I hadn't thought about. I always assumed more space meant more freedom but I think you're right, I'd probably just line up twenty pots and finish none of them, then call it "exploring."
And your other point, joder. That one stings a little because it's true. Small can be a cage if I'm not careful, I could disappear into making the same little cup forever and tell myself it's discipline. So what did you do with students who had the eye but kept hiding in the safe thing? Because I think I'm that student right now.
"more family members" is exactly it. mine are all slightly deformed and none of them sleep, so honestly the kiln fits right in with the rest of the family.
but what you said about the hand becoming more sure when there's no space, that's stayed with me since I read it. I've been thinking of my 4 meters as something to survive until I get a real taller, and maybe that's wrong. working on the floor, everything put away at night, the same room doing two jobs. small paper keeping the old forms alive. joder, that's a better way to think about it than anything I've come up with. thank you for that one, truly.