studiolo (n.) ITALIAN . a special room to be set aside as a place of study and contemplation;
a room of one's own.
During my first six months of painting and discovering Mexico City, I was ready to search for a bigger apartment in the hopes of realizing a lifelong dream of having my own separate room dedicated as a studio space solely for creative pursuits. Up until this point, my workspace was always nestled in whichever corner had the best light, somewhere near my bed. I found a cozy spot with lots of natural light, bordering three lively neighborhoods: Roma Norte, Juarez and Doctores. And my first official "studiolo" was born.
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My work has become increasingly influenced by the leafy nature and architectural compositions that fill my surrounding daily environment and through inspired trips around Central and South America.
I've been spending most of my days getting settled into a new city and country; establishing new studio routines, exploring imaginative concepts and reuniting with my curiousity and playfulness. And I have a new family member guiding me through it all with patience and heart, Pancho, my little pup.
Once Covid hit, I lost both of my jobs, forcing me to finally take the leap of becoming a full-time artist. After about a year, I felt I needed to change up my environment, hoping to gain some fresh inspiration and perspective. I headed to Mexico City where I had been accepted into a six-week artist residency program at Casa Lu. I immediately fell in love with the city, the people, the architecture, everything.
After the residency, I found a large studio apartment in a sleepy suburb near Coyoacan. I was thrilled to finally have my own creative space and live alone after over 10 years of living with roommates in the Bay Area.
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I started to get my bearings in my new city, locating art supply resources, exploring neighborhoods for inspiration, and building an artist community. At this time, I was experimenting with new mediums and painting on different types of local woods and fabrics. I was hungry and ready to dig in.
The room I rented in the Haight Ashbury housed my first real "studiolo-ish" nook for me to dream up my creations. I was here for almost five years so a lot was built here, creatively.
It started with mixed media collage, hand lettering, and illustrations of victorian houses with political signs in the windows. It ended with me falling in love with raw materials and making my own paint using pigment. I became obsessed with mark making and composing basic shapes and lines, beginning to think more abstractly. I played mostly with watercolors and what surfaces I could paint it on or what other mediums I could add to it. One of my pieces was then subsequently seen and accepted into the The de Young Open, I was ecstatic.
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During this period, I was working other jobs so I had to find time here and there to create. Lots of odd hours. But this is where it all began, and through many trials and errors, a strong foundation was cultivated.