Let’s talk about mess
Aside from the short walk to my backyard, one of the things I love most about having a studio is the freedom to make a mess. If the idea horrifies you, let me be clear. I might joke otherwise, but I'm not talking about chaos. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Mess is my process, and I've refined it over time.
Let me show you some of what I mean…
At the centre of everything is Bertha, my standing-height workbench. Fashioned from an old set of plan drawers I found on Gumtree, she’s both the surface where everything spreads out from and a powerhouse for storing works on paper/cardboard.
Bertha has an origin story, and one of my newsletter subscribers encouraged me to share it.
At university I took printmaking as an elective. Once our prints had dried on racks, they were cleared away to make room for other students’ work and filed into plan drawers that looked just like Bertha’s. Years later, setting up my previous studio, I remembered those drawers.
The Gumtree listing looked perfect, even if it meant hiring a ute and driving out of town on steep, winding roads. When I arrived, I recognised the seller: one of the studio technicians from my time at QUT. These drawers had come from the printmaking studio, which had closed many years earlier, and there I was, buying a literal piece of my own history!
Rearranging the studio shouldn't be an act of heroism, which is why almost all furniture (including Bertha) is on wheels. Being able to reposition quickly means I can follow the light, spread out organically, or push everything to the edges when I need to stand back and just look.
Whilst I also use an easel, I prefer to work completely upright. Because keeping my walls clean and white is a priority, I use the back sides of furniture. A large bookshelf and wardrobe do double duty: front for storage, back for working. But my most useful piece is one I MacGyvered together from two slim pantries, joined back-to-back with cut-to-size boards to create two work surfaces and always accessible storage on each side.
Everything has a home, and getting to it is never a battle.
Storage extends into the garage too, which houses one of my favourite builds. This time a Facebook Marketplace find, I used an old door and built partitions to vertically store finished paintings underneath. The top surface is fair game for things that don't belong in the studio. It's not glamorous but it works beautifully.
Mess is necessary and I let it flow to every surface (although with two sausage dogs underfoot, I can’t fully claim the floor). Things take over for as long as they need until I reconfigure and see it all with fresh eyes.
I flirt with chaos, knowing I'll never get there.