Dad helping me paint a wall in my first “real” studio.
My mom sent me a picture this morning. It was from my first ever studio space: a sprawling, exposed brick, concrete floor, natural light filled 1400 square foot room in one of the iconic Grainbelt buildings in NE Minneapolis. Each building had a different purpose in the production of the gut wrenching, skunky flavored beer back in its heyday. My building was a warehouse. From the outside, it was by far the least impressive architecturally, but inside… it was the quintessential art studio. It was the vision that I had in my head since I was a child, certain that I was to be the next Picasso and full enough of the confidence that only tiny humans have to declare that fact to anyone that would listen.
I shared the space with too few artists. We were in our 20’s and figured that we would find more friends to share the space eventually. We could afford a couple of months rent, we’d figure out the rest as we went. The optimism of youth that hadn’t really had too many struggles. With that studio, we struggled. We didn’t want to give it up, as if giving up the space was declaring failure. We were capital A “Artists” with a space that beautiful, that serious, that full of promise. I was making clothing and saw a future as a designer, with tons of room to take on an intern and eventually employees and eventually I’d take over the space with my thriving brand.
I picked up extra shifts at the coffee shop that I worked at to squeeze out enough for both my house rent and studio rent. I ate as much free food at work as possible so I didn’t have to go grocery shopping often. I made some really cool outfits for a local band, for a fun film project with my buddy, for a couple of writers who were going to the Oscars! I showed my creations in fashion shows and had racks of clothing that were one of a kind, handmade with the attention to detail that only comes with someone who is more dedicated to their craftsmanship than business. I still have many of those pieces today.
We managed to stick it out for our full year lease, but didn’t renew it. We were exhausted. Over the year, there were some months that there were only 2 of us in the space. Those months cost me double my house rent. As my more responsible friends saved up to buy a house or move to New York, I packed up my studio, broke and feeling both relieved and as if I had failed at proving that I deserved the title that I had given myself at 5 years old, when I first put pencil to sketchbook page.
Ugh….this was the amazing/way too expensive studio. Photo by Jamie Millard for Paper Darts.
Next, I took over our dining room at home…. and the spare bedroom, using an old twin bed frame that I had built in college to stretch fabric over to hand paint silks for my most ambitious fashion show to date. It was during this time that I realized that I could wake up at 5 am, work 6 hours at the coffee shop and still have energy to sew until midnight as long as I ran a couple of miles on the ancient treadmill in the basement before sitting down at the machine. I look back and have no idea how I had that kind of stamina.
That house was shared with my artist boyfriend, the one that was always critiquing the way that I drew or the amount of time I spent my work. It was understood that he was the one with more talent, I was the one that tried harder. The relationship thankfully didn’t last and I packed everything up and moved out. It was my third move that year (into the studio, out of the studio, in with some friends). I would move again in a few months and thoroughly deplete my help-with-moving favors from my pals. It took me awhile before I started drawing again. I still made clothing, but I didn’t enjoy it as much. The creativity was drained out and I was trying to make a living. I was trying to make things that would sell. I was also drinking….like a lot, but that is another story for another time.
In my new apartment, shared with a new, supportive and enthusiastic friend, I read “The Artists Way” and painted some portraits on cardboard. I worked with a local boutique and put together a really inspiring fashion show with a couple other designers that merged art and fashion. I started to feel like myself and gain back some confidence. We talked about renovating the attic into a studio, but I was ready for something new. I wanted to live on my own, in a loft-like apartment, where my studio would be my living space and I’d create every single day.
Photo quality of my phone in 2012! This was the workspace in my solo apartment. It was also my first ever picture for Instagram.
That apartment was amazing! It was a smaller version of my first studio, with antique woodwork replacing the exposed brick, but sharing the copious amounts of natural light from a full wall of windows. I loved living on my own, having the solitude I need to get the creative juices flowing. My living room was a sewing studio. My dining room was both the cutting table and a tiny 1950’s Formica kitchen table where I would paint water colors while my cat would try to sit on my paper. I laid fabric out on the hardwood floor to paint splattered stripes on linen for my first version of Dirty Stripes.
I made some beautiful clothing in my first and only solo apartment. My family has always been incredibly supportive of my creative ambition, including multiple times when my mom would come visit and be put to work, helping me finish garments for a fast approaching fashion show deadline. One night, as we blasted punk and sang along (mom harmonizing, a habit she picked up in church choir, sounding endearingly odd when applied to Operation Ivy). Mom stood over a 5 gallon pot and stirred a mixture of silk, water and thousands of tiny crushed beetle bodies to dye fabric for a gown. The galley kitchen was the size of a closet with hips brushing both counters when you walked straight in. There was a tiny window that provided zero respite from the noxious smells of boiling decay coming from that pot. When I think of that apartment, I think of that night. Full of stress and fumes and fun.
I couldn’t keep the apartment. It was too expensive and a friend of mine, who owned her own house, invited me to live in her living room. We built a giant sliding wall to close it off from the rest of the house and give me some privacy. I set up my sewing machine, but let it gather dust. I was done creating clothing, I decided. No one wanted the weird, sculptural designs I was making and I was sick of making garments and stowing them away in boxes. This was in 2014, when finding an online audience felt much more difficult, so I switched gears. I had recently learned how to work with vegetable-tanned leather. I decided to start a leather company. We cleaned out the basement, gave it a fresh coat of paint on the walls and floor, and set up a work bench.
The motivational poster I made myself in my basement studio.
My buddy and I were really great roommates and friends. We fed each others’ creative drives, knocking down walls in the house at midnight to give the house a more open feel. We’d take dance breaks when energy was waning and remind each other to drink water when we were too absorbed in what we were working on to take care of ourselves. It was a good time, but life moved on. We both decided that we wanted to live with our partners separately in the same night. The next day, as we sat down nervously to have the “talk” about me moving out, we laughed as we realized we were completely on the same page. It was time for something new.
I moved in with my partner. We turned the second bedroom into a studio for me and a workout room for him. My half of the room slowly creeped along the walls as I got more supplies and had more projects in the works. I started sewing a bit again, laying my fabric on the floor to cut it, dyeing shirts on the clothesline in the yard. I was also still working on leather and painting. My workbench was often littered with 3 or 4 different projects. I’d push a pile out of the way to start something new. It is often said that artists thrive in chaos and while that may be true for some, I am not one of those artists. I need a clean slate to get to work. As our second bedroom got more and more cramped, I started to look for a studio again.
A friend posted on Facebook that their friend was looking for a studio mate. I jumped on it! Could I afford a studio… mmm maybe? Did I need to leave the house more often and spread out a little in order to get anything accomplished? Yes! I went to meet Nickey at her studio in the Ivy Building in Seward, Minneapolis. It was a building that I had biked past many times, late at night, after shows at the Hexagon Bar, and wondered what went on in that building so aptly titled for the ivy vines that covered its brick façade. Nickey and I hit it off right away, musing about vintage clothing, the fashion industry, the punk and queer communities. I moved in later that month.
My work area in our Ivy Building studio.
I was back in a real studio building. We had huge windows and tall ceilings. We listened to podcasts together while she sewed and I created my first fiber sculptures. We exchanged ideas and gripes and cemented a friendship. We got a third studio mate, Sam, who just started moving their stuff in. Then the pandemic set in.
Amidst the anxiety and confusion of the early days, the only thing that grounded me was using my hands. I grabbed my portable sewing machine and some fabric and thread from the studio and set up a sewing space at home again. Making masks for the community gave me a sense of purpose and the only feeling of control that I could hang onto. The vintage store that I worked at closed temporarily with the stay at home order. Our studio building was closed as well. I spent every day listening to the news all day, spiraling into uncertainty and dread whenever I wasn’t scrubbing the baseboards of the kitchen or sitting behind my sewing machine. I don’t know how many masks I made. I stopped counting. I sewed masks for a couple of businesses. I joined an online mask making group and would deliver batches to where ever there was need. I still have half-finished masks in a box to this day.
After George Floyd was murdered by police, our city ignited with righteous rage. Everyone I know was either on the streets protesting, volunteering to support protestors, or patrolling the community on the lookout for white supremacists and rogue fires. I was in the latter group, staying up all night and wandering around with a fire extinguisher in case any of my neighbors’ houses or businesses caught fire. One night I took an early shift and actually slept. I slept through the call from Nickey, the one that frantically explained that our studio building was on fire and that a bunch of folks were headed there to try to fight the fire until the fire department could get there. I slept through the night as they hauled hoses up to the roof from neighboring houses and poured water onto the flames that were licking the same roof that they stood on. When I woke up in the morning, the fire was out. The fire department was there. We were supposed to wait until later that afternoon to check on the damage. Let some of the smoke clear.
I spent the morning in an emotional haze. I went to go clean up the streets and ended up giving people rides around town for a bit, as the transit systems were closed down. I went to the studio that afternoon with my partner to survey the damage. I had a bunch of leather goods that I was repairing for a client. They were the only thing that I could think about. I hoped that I could salvage them. Everything else was just stuff, but this was my client’s stuff. It was more important.
We wore the wrong shoes. I don’t own galoshes, but that is what I should’ve worn. I remember worrying about my partner’s shoes as he helped me carry out the tools and supplies that weren’t completely ruined by the smoke and water. We were some of the lucky ones. The flames didn’t reach our studio, but everything was submerged in a foot of black water and the acrid smell of burnt building materials had infiltrated everything. Days later, I’d return to help Sam haul some things out of the space and see if I forgot anything. By then, the mold had started to move in. It was time to let the rest go.
My workbench in the post-fire flooded Ivy Building. It probably wasn’t safe to be in there. My lungs ached for the next few days.
I moved back into the spare room. I bought a new work bench. It was cheap but sturdy and big. I didn’t really feel like making anything. My client was beyond understanding and supportive and hired me to make new versions of the pieces that were demolished in the fire. If it hadn’t been for that project, I don’t know when I would’ve picked up my tools again. I made more masks. As months creeped by, I spent a little time here and there creating little things. Nothing too crazy. Nothing too ambitious. Just a few things here and there to keep my hands moving.
It took me a while before I started feeling the pull of creativity again. Nickey reached out and asked if I'd want to share a space again right as I was beginning to scour Craigslist on a daily basis. I missed the Ivy Building, but repairs kept getting pushed back. It took a month for them to out a tarp over the gaping hole in the roof and I was nervous about lingering mold. There aren't many artist studios on the southside of town, so we expanded our search to other commercial spaces and surprisingly found a semi-affordable storefront five blocks from my house! We’d need more studio mates, but we were sure we’d find them. I nervously reached out to our former studio mate Sam, sure that after being in our Ivy Building space for only a month or two before the fire and losing a bunch of their art, they’d want nothing to do with us. I couldn't have been more wrong. Sam was in! Nickey knew Sheelah from the local coffee shop and she was also a displaced Ivy artist. We signed the lease, painted some walls, and moved in.
We all have elements of sewing in our work, so we named ourselves Sewer Rat Studio. It’s pronounced the way you want to read it when you see the words sewer and rat together, but the logo has a rat behind a sewing machine. It’s a busy, bright, creative, colorful space. There's light and high ceilings and lots of space but also never enough space. We’ve been there for a year and it feels like longer and shorter at the same time. The pandemic and some other life changes have garbled my sense of time. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to be in this space. We’ve got another year on our lease and I hope we can stay longer. We’re inviting folks to come see the space for the first time in a few days. I’m excited to get it ready for guests, show off some work and have it feel like the welcoming space we dreamt it would be when we first toured it. If you’ve read this far, you are invited to join us and I hope you do. Here’s to creative journeys in creative places and finding community through chaos. Cheers!
