Last night, a girlfriend came over for dinner and walked in breathless because she had just rented herself a studio. She had decided to move out of her apartment in Manhattan a few weeks ago, and I already knew that she was going to share with a friend in BedStuy, but this was news.
She realized that she could probably cobble enough freelance jobs together to keep body and soul together. She had vastly reduced her costs with her move, even with additional studio rent. The studio is shared, but she will have her own space to work. Her own space, outside of her home, to develop work.
My small studio operates as an office but the couch becomes my twin bed when I need to sleep. Nevertheless, most of the time, the space feels like my little office. It is where I think, I write, I edit, I read, I procrastinate, I make tea, I type, I sketch, I outline, I re-read, I copy-edit, I print, and start all over again. My desk is in front of a window looking out on a tree and no matter what time of year, I see the moon rise at some point during the evening. The windowsill is currently loaded with the plants that continue to survive despite my care and not quite sufficient light. The space is mine and permits me the privacy to make all the mistakes necessary for the work that I do.
My friend was bursting with the projects she has in mind. They all sound good and now she can do them. She can do them because she chose to believe in herself sufficiently to shape her life so that the focus is her design projects, rather than a job that will pay the bills, get her into a graduate school program she is not certain she wants to attend, or any of the other excuses that can be made for resisting the pull to produce for herself. As she said, she can't imagine where she will be in six months because she feels like so much will start to bloom simply because she has the space to let it.
The fact is that Virginia Woolf was right about the importance of a room of one's own. Now if we could all just find that 500 pounds a year....
I love the essence of this post. To enjoy your space, your surroundings and where you are today can be an art in and of itself. Cheers to your friend and to you.
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