Packed And Ready To Go

I packed my studio into a suitcase!

Tomorrow, I’m heading to Rhode Island for my art residency at Wilcox Park in Westerly. As a mixed media artist, I usually work with a wide range of materials—drawing, painting, sculpture, and collage—selecting what I need as ideas unfold. For this residency, though, I decided to focus entirely on two-dimensional materials so everything would be portable.

I’ve also chosen a few standard paper sizes to work with: 9"x12", 11"x14", and 10"x20". Each piece is backed with foam core or mounted in a mat with a plastic sleeve, so it’s essentially finished once I complete it. That’s not how I typically work, I’m rarely this strategic, but this experience has me approaching things differently. Maybe it will teach me a new way of working?

I’m both excited and a little nervous. I tend to work slowly, and I’m worried I might not have enough finished pieces for the open studio event on July 26th. But I haven’t had this much uninterrupted time for my creative practice since graduate school (2006–2009!), so maybe I’ll be more productive than I expect.

I’ll be sharing daily reflections and photos of my experience here on my website, so check back and follow along. I’ll also be posting shorter updates on Instagram: @tinahirsig.

More soon!