Welcome to Studio 378.

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I have an annual open studio show in my house every third week of November. I take down my living room, dining room, and family room, and turn it all into a beautiful art gallery for three days as a pre-Christmas show and sale. In November 2022 I felt like it became time for me to not have people come into my house anymore. The town has grown a lot in the last few years and also my popularity.  I felt like it was time to have my privacy back.

My studio for the last 5 years was in the family room. It was a 13’ x 12‘ room open to the dining room, kitchen and living room. So when people came to see and buy work, they had to go through my house to come to the studio.

So after this show, I said to Quincy that I wasn’t going to have any more in-house shows and that I was going to have to look for a new venue for the 2023 November show. Then in December, I said to him that it would really be nice to build a studio in our backyard and would solve a lot of those problems. I had considered building a studio in the backyard about five or six years ago, but never pulled the trigger on it. This time, though, he immediately said, let’s call Dan. Dan is our friend who is a contractor and builder. 

The next thing we knew, we were in the queue for the building schedule. It looked like he wouldn’t be able to start until this fall, except that another build was delayed and he ended up squeezing us in in February.

The whole build took just under three months! It went so quickly.

So many of our friends were a part of the build, and I felt incredibly supported by my community in the process. My entire intention for the build was to allow it to come together, on its own time, not rush anything, and trust the process on the builders. The entire build went smoothly and with very little hitches. 

I really wanted this studio to be a space where people would feel welcome, calm, and just want to stay. I didn’t want it to feel like a cold gallery, which can really be unwelcome and off putting. The way that the build came together felt like that was the building’s intention as well! Lol.

I decided to have an open studio from June 10-11, 2023 to celebrate the new building, show it off, and have people have the opportunity to see it for themselves. The entire weekend was so wonderful! Everyone that came through responded to the gallery exactly how I had hoped they would. I was beside myself with joy that I have a space that is so welcoming and that people already love and enjoy. 

In my mind, I always thought it would be lovely to have a building where I could have the doors wide open to the garden and I could paint in the mornings and Quincy could come and have coffee with me while I painted. And now I have a deck, a pond, and an expanding garden. That feels exactly as I wanted. The yard really has a lovely peaceful vibe to it as well. 

The studio is 414 ft.² and feels just right in size.

I’m in a place in my life right now, where I feel like art matters, art impacts people in specific ways to its creators and its viewers, and I now have an opportunity to facilitate a place for people to not just connect with the art that I create, but really connect with themselves. Since Covid, I have come to see a different purpose for my art. It came out because of the stresses that Covid put on people. Their response to my work became much more visceral, and I realized that my art became a platform for people to connect with themselves, and find peace and calm in the middle of such a big storm.

I trusted the process of the building coming to life. And now I believe that if I trust the process of the story of my work, the story of my life, and the direction that I’m heading, that whatever needs to happen will come to fruition if I allow it the time and space to develop, and do what it needs to.

I am very excited about the stories this studio will tell. 

I named the building Studio 378. The number is a nod to Quincy‘s fishing career, my past fishing career, and the life that the fishing industry has given me. L378 is the number of the halibut license that we had. I am so grateful for my life as a fisherman and as a fisherman‘s wife.  Because of fishing I have a studio today. And so I wanted to honour that part of our life with the name.