Much has been covered about the what, why, and how we create but this episode is all about WHERE we do our creative work. In the wake of Lauren’s big move back to NYC, she’s been thinking a lot about transitioning from a dedicated art studio to a wall in her new bedroom. It’s got the gals thinking about the benefits of having a home within your home (however small) JUST for being the best, most imaginative, creative you possible. They talk about the possibilities and limitations of making dedicated creative spaces and how they navigate arranging their own.
Much has been covered about the what, why, and how we create but this episode is all about WHERE we do our creative work. In the wake of Lauren’s big move back to NYC, she’s been thinking a lot about transitioning from a dedicated art studio to a wall in her new bedroom. It’s got the gals thinking about the benefits of having a home within your home (however small) JUST for being the best, most imaginative, creative you possible. They talk about the possibilities and limitations of making dedicated creative spaces and how they navigate arranging their own.
Episode Mentions
LETTERERS! Check out Lauren’s Lettering Seminar Q&A session with Martina Flor! Watch or Listen.
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The transcript for this episode can be found here!
[AD] Rachael: This episode is brought to you by me, Rachael Renae, your creativity coach.
Did you know that I offer one-on-one sessions? One of my favorite things is to help my fellow Chaotic Creatives gain a little bit of clarity in their creative practices and their lives. So, you can book a session today. We can develop or refine your creative project idea, we can clarify your creative goals, we can map out what your big, juicy life looks like, or we can build a system for prioritizing play and making it easy for you to incorporate.
If you'd like to book a session, you can visit rachaelrenae.com, that's R-A-C-H-A-E-L-R-E-N-A-E dot com backlash coaching.
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Rachael: Do we need to bring back Room Raiders?
Lauren: We need to do Room Raiders, but for Millennials.
Rachael: 35-plus edition.
Lauren: Yeah, because Room Raiders was for college kids with disgusting rooms who sometimes still lived with their parents.
Rachael: Yeah, I remember the blacklight thing.
Lauren: Yeah.
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Rachael: Hi! Welcome back to Chaotic Creatives, a show about embracing the chaos that comes from living a creative life.
Lauren: We are your hosts, two self-proclaimed Chaotic Creative gals. I am Lauren Hom, better known as Hom Sweet Hom on the internet. I am a designer, lettering artist, muralist, and chef.
Rachael: And I'm Rachael Renae. I'm an artist, I'm a creativity coach, and your internet hype. And today-
Lauren: Welcome.
Rachael: Welcome. Yay. We are talking about creative spaces.
Lauren: Yeah, your physical space. As you've heard in this season, I'm in the middle of a move, so I'm moving out of my studio here in Detroit and relocating to New York City. So I'm downsizing, and so I'm in transition and thinking about planning a new smaller space. But we got to talking about how, when it comes to decorating and planning a space, you and I both center it around our creative hobbies and practices. And that's what we wanted to talk about today is as a Chaotic Creative, how do we go about decorating our spaces with creativity in mind, like our actual creative practices about what crafts and things are we going to do in here, and then also how do we want the space to feel?
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. First of all, I didn't realize it, but I have my New York Broadway shirt on for you today.
Lauren: Oh, yeah.
Rachael: A lot of dandruff also. I got a dry scalp.
Lauren: Head & Shoulders-
Rachael: Hello, I am a human.
Lauren: ... give us a call.
Rachael: Yeah. I keep meaning to buy dandruff shampoo.
Lauren: I have some for you.
Rachael: Oh!
Lauren: When I move, you can have the rest of it. I bought too big of a bottle.
Rachael: Thank you so much. I would love to take that off your hands. Honored.
Okay. So New York shirt and dandruff aside, yeah, decorating spaces, I think that this is something that I am so impacted by how my space looks as far as how I feel. And so I have always, even when I rented, really customized my space. Maybe I'm not doing as much painting. I'm definitely not as much of a painter as you, mostly because I don't like it.
Lauren: Fair.
Rachael: I like the color and I want things to be painted, but I don't enjoy the process. So it has to be like an ADHD hyperfixation moment of like, "Oh my God, I have the energy. I'm going to do this right now," and then I usually go buy the paint and then do it, and then it sits unfinished for months until my friend Lauren comes over and helps me.
Lauren: Nice.
Rachael: So I care a lot about making my spaces feel very much like me because it impacts how I feel. And I think it's interesting to think about going from owning your space where you have total creative control to renting again, also downsizing significantly.
So yeah, walk us through what your process is for how you're planning your space, especially because you live in your space right now and it's mostly studio, and you're kind of like... You have your hobbit hole over in the corner where you sleep.
Lauren: Rude!
Rachael: We love hobbits! But you created this space first as a studio.
Lauren: Yeah. I guess I can say it now because I'll be out of here, but I've been keeping it hushed before this.
Rachael: Oh, I'm sorry.
Lauren: No, no, no. It's fine because I just didn't want any weirdos to stop by.
Rachael: Oh my gosh. Of course because you have... I'm so sorry.
Lauren: No, you don't have to. I won't be here, so it's okay.
Rachael: Yeah.
Lauren: But after culinary school, I've basically been living in my art studio for the last year.
Rachael: But it's a living space.
Lauren: Yeah, it's like a live-work space and so it's fine, but it was mostly set up as my art studio for the longest time. And so it is, the joke amongst my friends is there's no soft surfaces in here. It's all very hostile surfaces. It's all just tables.
Rachael: We're sitting on the soft surfaces.
Lauren: There are these chairs, and there's my bed, and that is it. No couch, no rugs. It is-
Rachael: Not comfy.
Lauren: It's just like work surfaces.
Rachael: Interrogation only.
Lauren: But this is, I guess, the epitome of a space dedicated to creativity.
Rachael: Which is beautiful.
Lauren: And I'm a big fan of having a dedicated workspace for your creative stuff where I want to be able to leave a project out and come back to it as is versus having to clean up every single time. I think that there's a lack of friction there when it comes to a creative workflow where I was talking with my friend Lauren that I'm moving in with in New York, and she's like, "Oh, but aren't you going to work from the dining table or a common area?" And I was like, "Well, I still want that dedicated space." Even though, sure, it's going to take up real estate in my tiny-ass bedroom, I still am dedicating a chunk of my bedroom to a creative workstation because I'm just trying to be more cautious when I move back to New York. I'm not going to get a dedicated workspace quite yet and just start small and slowly expand as needed and maybe just go to coffee shops.
But I'm still dedicating a space where I can leave my projects out, and it might be a little more limiting in terms of what I can do, but I think it's really important to have that dedicated space because we've talked about this earlier in the season and in prior seasons of just carving out, whether it's a container of time or a certain topic or a project to work on, or even the container of a gathering where it's like, "Hey, we're going to dedicate these resources to this one thing, creativity, that we love." And I am also very impacted by my physical space, and I think that even just seeing your, whether it's your quilting table or your workstation or your hobby corner, it's a nice reminder that, "Oh, I should get to that." And so I like having that around.
Rachael: Yeah, I do too. And I have moved my spaces in my house a lot because my main floor has the living room, and then there's a weird TV room nook, and then I have my office. And when COVID started and we went to work from home, that office was like guest room. I didn't really use it a lot. It was a dumping ground for all the shit I needed to put away, and then I would close the door. But I turned it into an office, and in that process, had my desk with my computer for my day job, then I had two other desks, L-shaped, where I had all my sewing stuff.
But I found that, even though I loved sewing in there because the sun shines in there really nicely, especially in the spring when I have a lot of creative energy, it frustrated me to have the mess when I was trying to focus on my day job. So I found myself putting things away, which I don't like to do because I feel like I want to pause when I need to and then be able to jump right back into the project.
So I ended up moving all my sewing stuff into the basement, which is not aesthetically pleasing, but it is much more helpful for me in terms of being able to leave everything out. But I have considered, I don't know if I've said this to you or on the podcast, I know I've talked about it here and there, my bedroom is upstairs and it gets a lot of light, and I only use it as a bedroom, but it's huge. And I have considered maybe moving all of my craft stuff up there.
Lauren: Ooh!
Rachael: So I have my sewing stuff, I would have all of my... I have the Ikea many-drawer units full of-
Lauren: That we built.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. With tons of craft supplies in them. And the only thing that has stopped me from doing that is that I would move my bedroom downstairs to where my office is, there's no closet in that room, so I would have to still go up into that space to get dressed because my big closets are up there, but also getting dressed is a creative hobby of mine, so-
Lauren: Yeah, I don't hate that.
Rachael: ... I think it could work. And then it would, I don't need to, but it would clear some space from the basement. Mostly, I just really like working in a lot of daylight.
Lauren: Yes, sunlight. Yeah, it's a big thing.
Rachael: Yeah, it's tough to want to go into the basement, especially with longer days in the summer.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: I'm curious how you have approached decorating your space for you. Maybe before you had this studio, you lived with a partner, how did you compromise? How did you think about another person's perspective, or alternatively, how did you decorate prior to owning your own space?
Lauren: Ooh. Yeah, this is-
Rachael: Whichever question you want to answer.
Lauren: Cool. I'll do the last one first.
So it's definitely been an acclimation period, going from being able to do whatever I want in this space because I own it to asking my landlord, "Please can I paint the walls?" Which is very humbling, and it is, again, working with what you've got and what you can do. I'm still going to paint my new space because color is a big thing for me personally. And again, balancing the two functions of the room where I'm like, "Okay, creative nook," but also it's going to be cozy because it's going to be my bedroom too, so keeping a... maybe designing the separate areas, but still ultimately I need to sleep in there.
And so that's been a learning curve because renting too, it's like there's a practical part of my brain that's like, "Well, it's not mine, so how much effort should I really put into this temporary space that I don't really have any stake in?" But then that's also how you end up, if you go too far down that practical line of thinking, you can end up with a space that feels drab or doesn't feel like you. And it's obviously, maybe it's pure function and it doesn't actually impact the function of the room, but it just isn't quite as joyful or as life-giving as it could be. And you and I are big on color and fun and silliness and joy, and so I think it's worth spending that weekend or even a couple weekends over the first month that I'm back, I'll likely spend decorating and painting and just adding extra little bits of things in.
So when it came to designing a space with a partner though, which I'm sure a lot of people listening live with roommates or live with a romantic partner, that was a really interesting creative challenge, I guess. I got lucky in the sense that my former partner was also a designer, so at least we had a base-level understanding of what is good or acceptable design principles. We got lucky too that both of us, the Venn diagram of our design aesthetics, we both liked the color blue, and so that was very helpful.
Rachael: Great.
Lauren: It wasn't like we dug our heels in into two completely different camps, and so we just kind of compromised. And he was super minimal, I was super maximal, and we met in the middle.
Rachael: Yeah. It's interesting because I know you are maximal, but when I compare myself to you, I'm maximal-plus because you don't like stuff.
Lauren: I'm maximal aesthetically when it comes to my design aesthetic, but you are probably more maximal too, even our tattoos and our style, you're definitely more than I am, which is I've been outmatched.
Rachael: I love it. Yeah, I've been talking a lot on Instagram lately about recognizing the things, and we've talked about it on a couple episodes about the things that I'm self-conscious about and being too much is one of them, but also, I think that those things are our superpowers. The things that we're self-conscious about are the things that the people who love us love us for.
And so when you're like, "You're more," I'm like, "but not too much. I'm just a lot"-
Lauren: Yeah, not too much.
Rachael: ... "for the right people."
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah, I am a lot in terms of aesthetic. I love color. Rarely will you find me in all black. We did one episode this season where I was, and just every once in a while, I'm like... It's like you always talk about, like when you're absorbing information, pressure washing your brain. I feel like it's a palette cleanser for me to like, "Okay, I'm feeling all black. I'm going to feel like I'm totally neutral, blank canvas, and then I start again."
Lauren: I love that. I love that as a palette cleanser. Because when I was getting dressed today, I almost put on a black shirt and I was like, "What if I wear all black this time?" But then I couldn't do it. I was like, "I want to wear my green shirt."
Rachael: Yeah. But in terms of my spaces, I love collecting things, and so I have a lot of tchotchkes. Every time I go on a trip, I get lots of souvenirs and I just love having my little things out. I love my things. And I used to feel very self-conscious about that because I, in my head, I'm like, "Me liking things is overconsumption. It's leaning into capitalism." And I was doing a lot of thinking around that, like, "Do I need to go more minimal? Do I need to stop buying stuff?" And when I say, "Buying stuff," I'm going to an antique store or an artist's market. I'm not-
Lauren: Yeah. I never think of your stuff consumption as overconsumption in a-
Rachael: Because it's intentional.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: I'm buying it for a reason. I can tell you where all those little things were from or why.
Lauren: Yeah, there's a story behind it and it's also like you're buying it because it's fun. It's not just like, "Oh, there's a deal, so I'm going to stock up on all these things," and-
Rachael: Yeah. It's not an urgency thing where some influencer told me to buy this thing, so I'm buying it. I don't need it.
Lauren: And you have such a defined sense of personal style in your home and yourself that I'm like, "Oh, you're clearly selecting these things intentionally." And yeah, I've never associated it with overconsumption because I'm someone who grew up around a lot of stuff, like my--love you, Grandma--my grandma's a bit of a hoarder. My-
Rachael: I feel like that generation, it's common for that generation.
Lauren: Yeah. And then one of my best friends growing up, she described it as, the house that I grew up in, my mom and dad weren't hoarders, but she was like, "There were a lot of wares in your home." My mom and I would go to thrift store a lot and just get stuff, and there was just a lot of things in the house, like decorative baskets and stuff, and it didn't quite match. I just grew up with a lot of visual things going on.
Rachael: Yeah. Well, a lot of visual interest that maybe... I don't know. I wish we were friends when we were kids.
Lauren: My mom was really crafty too. She glued seashells around the frame of the bathroom mirror and sponge painted the hallway and the dining room, so it had some texture. And so there was a lot of DIY, kind of the same stuff that I do now, just in a more personal use setting.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. DIY beach vibes.
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Did you live on the beach?
Lauren: No. Maybe 10-minute drive. So where I grew up was not super close, but my grandma's like a 10-minute walk-
Rachael: Oh, fun.
Lauren: ... from the beach. Yeah.
Rachael: Cool.
Lauren: Maybe 15. I could be wrong. I've only done it a couple times.
Rachael: I'm going to go to your grandma's and clock it and I'm going to call you out if you're wrong.
One of the things that has helped me come to terms with my collections is I went to Mexico City, not last summer, maybe two summers ago now, I think, and went to the Frida Kahlo Museum, which is her and Diego Rivera's house that is now a museum. And I didn't have a lot of personal ties in terms of I didn't know a lot about Frida Kahlo. I know we have the Diego Rivera mural in the Detroit Institute of Art, but I didn't really know a lot other than there's that one newspaper clipping, like, "Diego Rivera's wife dabbles in painting," where it's like they're not acknowledging her as a real artist.
So I didn't have a lot of like, "Oh, I have no huge desire to go here," but my friend wanted to go and we went, and I'm so happy we did because I loved learning about her communist ties to her art, to community, and understanding her heritage as a woman in Mexico and the challenges that she went through as someone with a disability. I just didn't know any of that. So it was cool to learn that and be like, "Oh, this is a badass artist." I don't necessarily need her work to resonate with me to understand that she was so cool. And they had all of her, not all, a bunch of her clothes on display, which was very cool. Clothes were really important to her.
So I was finding myself really resonating with her as the artist, not necessarily her final product of art. And because you're walking through their home, they have all of their things out, things that they collected, and there was something that, some signage around one of her collections, that was like she very intentionally chose these items to represent a story or an experience or a memory, and it influenced her perspective on life and her art, and I was like, "Oh my God. Yeah, all my collections are just the museum of me."
Lauren: Yeah, that's how I think of your house.
Rachael: Yeah. If you walk in and I'm not there, you're like, "This is very Rachael," and you can learn a lot about me.
Lauren: It reminds me of Room Raiders. Do you remember that show?
Rachael: Yeah! Also, when I introduced the episode, I was like, "Oh, like Trading Spaces on TLC." Did you watch that show?
Lauren: No.
Rachael: Where two couples would switch and then they would design their homes or a room for each other?
Lauren: Based on what they knew about each other, or no?
Rachael: I think they were strangers. And a lot of times it was ugly. There were only a couple of times that I remember as a kid being like, "Oh, wow, that person really doesn't like it," but they would've to pretend. They're on TV.
Lauren: Oh my God. You would be perfect for Room Raiders because it's dating and interior design.
Rachael: Do we need to bring back Room Raiders?
Lauren: We need to do Room Raiders, but for Millennials.
Rachael: 35-plus edition.
Lauren: Yeah, because Room Raiders was for college kids with disgusting rooms who sometimes still lived with their parents.
Rachael: Yeah, I remember the blacklight thing.
Lauren: Yeah. I think Room Raiders would be great for like...
Rachael: Home Raiders.
Lauren: Yeah, yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. Because what was the premise? You go in and you decide if you want to date this person based on their room?
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: You don't ever meet them.
Lauren: Yep. Yeah, they remove... They kidnap you from your room and they take away all the photos of you so they can't see what you look like, and then the person comes in and looks at three people's empty rooms and you're allowed to look through drawers and whatnot-
Rachael: Oh my gosh.
Lauren: ... to get a sense of someone based on their room. Yeah.
Rachael: That's fun. I'm just thinking of there are two very distinctive versions of my home. One is when I have free time and it's clean and tidy and smells really good, and then there's one which is what it is right now.
Lauren: Well, that was the premise of the show too is they weren't supposed to tell you when they were coming to get you, so they wouldn't... You weren't supposed to be able to clean up.
Rachael: The minute I submitted an application, I'd be like, "This place is spotless until I find out that I'm through this process." You know?
Lauren: Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. My house right now is trashed. I know I told you this when I walked in, but I've just had a really, really busy couple of weeks, and that's always the first thing to go.
Lauren: Oh, yeah.
Rachael: I think that that's important also to share on the internet on the podcast where I always say, "Prioritize your play. There's time," and there's time because I let other things go, like my room is messy.
Lauren: Yeah, something's got to give. Yep.
Rachael: And I will clean it. And of course it's different if you're sharing your space with another person. You have to come to terms with what that means for you as a couple or a roommate situation.
But yeah, there's no surface in my home doesn't have on it. Clothes on the bed, not on the side I'm sleeping on because I have a king-sized bed and I just like... The other side is just-
Lauren: Oh, yeah.
Rachael: ... a surface to dump stuff on. I know you're familiar. And then there's a couch in my bedroom. That has my suitcase that I haven't unpacked. It has boxes that I haven't opened. All the surfaces in my kitchen are covered with shit, ceramics, mail. Yeah, I can't wait to clean it tomorrow morning. It's going to feel so good.
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[AD] Lauren: Hi. You know how we're always yapping on this podcast about trying new things in your creative business? This episode is brought to you by one of my creative experiments, my mural mock-ups. You get 10 high-resolution Photoshop mock-ups with easy-to-edit smart objects, which, in non-creative dork speak, means that you can drag your drawing into the mock-up and it'll instantly make your art look like a mural on a real wall. Pretty cool, right?
Fun fact, Kristle, who you all know and love is the editor of this podcast, shot all of the photos for these mock-ups, so I love that.
These mock-ups are perfect for muralists and aspiring muralists who want to shorten the time it takes them to add mural images to their portfolios and present their work to clients. You can head to homsweethom.com/mural-mockups, or the link in the episode description to check them out. Okay. Now, back to the show.
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Lauren: I've been sleeping next to a roll of maple veneer.
Rachael: You haven't moved that?
Lauren: No!
Rachael: Okay. First of all, what is the maple veneer for? Second, why did you decide that the bed was the best place to put it and then not move it? I'm not judging you, I'm just asking the thought process because-
Lauren: I just don't want it to get damaged.
Rachael: Okay. That's fair.
Lauren: And I don't know. There just wasn't a good... It's huge because it's eight feet by four feet rolled up. I just didn't want it to get damaged because I'm trying to sell it on Facebook Marketplace right now. It's left over from when I was refinishing the cabinets at me and my ex's place.
Rachael: The other place, okay.
Lauren: And I just bought too much of it.
Rachael: Where has it been?
Lauren: It's been up in the nook, but I'm clearing it out.
Rachael: Yeah, okay. I'm like, "I've never seen it before"-
Lauren: Yeah, it's been hanging out.
Rachael: ... "until it became your bed partner."
Lauren: Yeah, yeah. A king-sized bed fits and eight-foot roll of maple veneer. Yep.
Rachael: Perfect. Who needs a bed partner when you got an eight-foot roll of maple veneer?
Lauren: I know, I know.
Rachael: Incredible. Okay, so you're getting some insight into the gross girls.
Lauren: Yeah, but something does have to give a lot of times. And we're speaking as people who are on the internet who, I've heard discourse around this, for the first time in media, we're self-publishing because of social media and we can see the inside of regular people's homes and instead of just celebrities, right?
And so I think we're seeing into other people's spaces more often, and so I never want anyone to feel pressured to make their home look perfect. And what you're seeing online too is Rachael and I are influencers, and so we have different incentives to make our spaces look cool because we're filming in here a lot of times. And so I don't want anyone to ever feel bad that like, "Oh, my house isn't colorful," or, "my landlord won't let me paint." There are things you can do if you really want to, like if you really want to prioritize having a colorful space, but it is a lot of effort, and on the other side of the camera, there's probably a pile of shit. I mean stuff, not actual shit.
Rachael: Yeah. I would hope that they know that.
I will say though, I have never intentionally made a design decision based on knowing that I'll film. My home would look like that even if I didn't, but there is always a pile of shit on the other side of the camera, yeah, of stuff. Because you're also just moving your camera around. Sometimes you have to move stuff out of the way to be able to film there and-
Lauren: That is true.
Rachael: Yeah, I try to be really honest. I mean, I took videos of all my piles this morning while I was waiting for the water to boil for coffee because I was like, "I got to, I don't know, talk about this."
Lauren: Hence...
Rachael: Tell me you had a busy week without telling me you had a busy week.
Lauren: That's very nice. Yeah, I guess that's interesting because from my perspective, because we're in this space right now, this space was specifically designed for work. So the way that this space looks and my bright yellow and teal kitchen, I don't think that's how I would design my home, but my home would probably fall somewhere like a chiller version of this.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. That makes sense, yeah.
Lauren: This is a little bit, I mean, I've been living in here, but-
Rachael: Yeah, but when you designed it originally, it was as your studio. Yeah, that makes sense.
Lauren: Yeah. I prefer a little bit of a earthier home environment, but I mean, you saw me in Tom's old place.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah.
Lauren: It was still fun.
Rachael: It was. It was still very cute. Very fun. Yeah.
Lauren: It was bluer.
Rachael: It still had a mural on the wall. Yeah, just not as many colors. Yeah.
I want you to talk about, maybe before we wrap up, we were brainstorming what we wanted to talk about, and we talked about dedicated spaces in our homes, and so I want you to talk about your reflection of the bathroom space.
Lauren: Yeah, when Rachael first sent me the voice memo when we were brainstorming for this episode about creative spaces, I was in the bathroom. And I had this moment where I was like, "Whoa, Rachael and I have built lives centered around creative expression, our creative practices," and again, context, we don't have kids, we don't have families we're raising. We have-
Rachael: Or even partners.
Lauren: ... we have the bandwidth, yeah, to dedicate our lives to these things and to think about this.
Rachael: We have each other.
Lauren: Yeah, we have each other. It's great. And we've set our lives up this way, but I was like, "Whoa. Creativity is so important to us." The same way that in a regular house, there's a bathroom, we dedicate a separate room to bathing and toilet because it's so integral to living a good life and wellness. The same thing goes for think about dining room, living room, bedroom.
Rachael: Even office.
Lauren: Yeah, these are-
Rachael: We have dedicated workspaces.
Lauren: ... separate spaces. And so I think that there's something really beautiful about a commitment to your creative practice, even if it's just, again, I'm going from having a full-on art studio, like 800 square feet of art studio, to a wall in my bedroom in New York City. It's still a dedicated space, and so you don't have to have a separate room per se, but it's really beautiful to say, "Hey, I'm going to make a commitment to my creative practice and my art," even if it's a hobby, whether it's professional or a hobby, to say, "this is where I'm going to sit down and make my stuff."
I think it's really actually important if you say you want to make progress on your craft or your art, I think it's important to have even just a desk in the corner of your house the same way that you might carve out a day on the weekend or even an evening during the week to go to a class or work on your thing. That is how you get better at the thing or make progress on your creative craft.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think it's important to create those spaces, even if it's a part of one room, a corner of a desk.
Lauren: Yeah, it can be a nook. I've seen studios where, oh, man, I saw, I'm going to have... We'll link them in the show notes. I went to, oh my gosh, what's it even called? There was an animation conference that I went to last-last year. I can't remember the name. I'll put it in the show notes. But there was an artist there who showed a photo of his workspace, and it's in his tiny Paris studio apartment, and it looked like it was half of the apartment. It's the tiniest studio I've ever seen, but you see all his sketches on the wall, his computer, and I'm like, "That's so beautiful." When you want to do art, you figure out a way to do your art.
Rachael: Yeah. And I think having the dedicated space is important because if you have the barrier of like, "I need to clean off the table every time I'm going to do my work," that might be too big of a barrier some days. Whereas if you have a space where you can leave your sketchbook out or leave your sewing machine out, it's easier to access so you're creating a lower barrier of entry to you doing that activity.
Lauren: Totally. Similar to how it's a lot easier to cook if you have a well-stocked kitchen and the stove is already clear and clean and the dishes are already done.
Rachael: It's a lot easier to bathe when you have a bathroom and you don't have to go down to the stream. Like if you're camping, I'm not prioritizing showering. You know?
Lauren: Oh! Oh, yeah. I didn't even think about that. Yeah.
Rachael: I mean, I was thinking about living in a cabin in the woods and how maybe you take an extra day between your showers, but when we have access to that, we do it more.
Lauren: Yes, it's true. I mean, yeah, I think having a space where you can see it visually too, and you're like, "Okay, that's where I do my creative stuff," and you have all your gear ready to go. I know you're a gear gal.
Rachael: Love gear.
Lauren: It makes it so much easier to have just a dedicated little station that you do your work at, and depending on what... Again, there might be limitations with your space. I am not going to be doing any work with clay in my bedroom because it's so messy. Right?
Rachael: Mm-hmm.
Lauren: I understand the limitations of my new space. I'm not going to be sawing two-by-fours. Who knows?
Rachael: I wouldn't put it past you. I feel like-
Lauren: I would maybe go up on the roof and do that.
Rachael: Yeah, there you go.
Lauren: You make it work. I'm scrappy. I'll figure it out. I've really appreciated this space for what it is. And yeah, I think if it's any inspiration to anyone who's listening, even if you have a small space, having a dedicated little nook that is yours for creativity will make a world of difference.
Rachael: I also want to make sure that I mention this because it's floating in my brain, I don't want to lose it. When we think of craft spaces or craft rooms, there's sometimes this looking down, a connotation that it's frivolous and like, "Oh, your craft space, hee hee," but if you think about a man's woodworking space in the garage or someone who's into motorcycles having the garage to work on their bike, or people who have access to maker spaces, or whatever your hobby or interest is, we should be able to have access to that. And I think I'm thinking of a grandma has a quilting room and we're like, "Hee hee, Grandma's quilting room," but that's important, and people make space for that.
And I think even if it's not your business, so much of what you create, it's important for you to have the space because it's your business, and even if it's not, can you carve out some space for your creative practice?
I have a friend who she and her husband are printmakers, so they have a printmaking studio in their basement, but she's taking oil painting classes, and she wanted a space to set up her paint and turn one of her closets into a little desk, put bright lights in there-
Lauren: Wow!
Rachael: ... so that she could make her oil painting in there. So obviously, already being an artist, it probably wasn't a big decision to do that, but as much as we can set ourselves up for success in terms of prioritizing our play, if we want to be artists, even if it's not professionally, we have to be able to give ourselves the space and time to do so.
Lauren: Yeah. I think similar to finding focus, having a focused space or even a almost singular use for that space is a helpful container. So similar to what they say about sleep hygiene where you're not supposed to take your laptop or phone-
Rachael: Your wood veneer roll to bed.
Lauren: Yeah, into your bed because... Or even having a TV in the bedroom, people will say that it's supposed to be your little oasis, and it should be cozy and no blue light an hour before you go to bed. You should just read, which I think you and Kristle are pretty good at a lot of times.
Rachael: I'm okay. I love to think that I'm so much better than everyone who has a TV in their room because I don't, but-
Lauren: You just have a tiny TV.
Rachael: I have a little TV and it's this close to my face, so it's probably worse for me, actually.
Lauren: Yeah, but-
Rachael: No, I do, I do read a lot, but sometimes I'm reading on my phone.
Lauren: Yeah. If instead of working at the dining table or drawing at the dining table, which is still an option, if you have a dedicated drawing table, it can be a nice focus for your practice. It's not to say that you can't work at the dining table, but that's also where you have to clear it off to eat dinner. Maybe you have friends over, maybe one of your kids spilled something at the table. There's just a lot going on, and so yeah, if possible, try to have a little separate station. It might help you do more of the thing you say you want to do. It certainly helps me as someone who is very easily distracted.
Rachael: Me too. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to taking that table off your hands-
Lauren: Oh my gosh.
Rachael: ... so that I can really spread out to do my quilting projects.
Lauren: Yes. Yeah, you want to set yourself up for success.
Rachael: I do, I do. Yeah. Okay, so speaking of projects, are you working... I mean, I know you're in this, you're in crunch time. You're about to be moving, so I would imagine that you aren't actively working on many big creative projects besides your work, but is there anything that you're noodling on? I would imagine your space is probably the big one right now.
Lauren: Yeah. I'm planning my, again, creative desk setup in my bedroom with some faux built-in drawers underneath. It's going to-
Rachael: What's your plan? You're going to Ikea hack it?
Lauren: I'm going to Ikea hack it because I have all those Ikea drawers that I'm bringing with me, and they're about window height, so I basically just need to do, configure a long desktop, and then there's a recessed window in my room that I'm going to add onto, so it's basically just taking some scrap wood and building a long-ass desktop is my current project. I have it all laid out in Adobe Illustrator.
Rachael: I love that.
Lauren: Yeah. It's real geeky. What about you?
Rachael: Yeah, I feel like I've had such a busy month. I have so many ideas and so many things I want to do and haven't had time to execute, and I don't like that. I don't like being a person that talks about their ideas and never actually-
Lauren: Ooh, and you're a little backed up right now.
Rachael: I'm a little backed up.
Lauren: You have a little creative constipation.
Rachael: A little creative constipation, for sure. We got to get the creative fiber going to get things moving, the Smooth Move tea of the creative world, which is free time for me. We'll see. I think I have some time this weekend, but again, I mentioned I do need to clean my home. I need to get groceries. I still haven't gotten groceries from when I was away. I've been eating freezer meals, which I'm so grateful for myself for making chili and freezing a bunch of it because I've been sustaining myself, where normally I'd be like, "I'll just eat bread for every meal because that's what I have."
Lauren: Oh, that's also one of my final projects too is I got my sourdough starter going again because one of the last things I want to do before I leave is bake you and Kristle a ton of bread.
Rachael: Oh my God. I would love that! Wow.
Lauren: Yeah, because you gave me all that nice flour too, so I owe you some loaves and you can just freeze them. So when you do need to eat bread for dinner...
Rachael: Oh, I mean, I eat bread with every meal.
Lauren: Good.
Rachael: But it's just sometimes I don't want it to be the only thing I eat. You know? I want there to be a vegetable-
Lauren: Yeah, it's nice.
Rachael: ... or a legume involved.
Lauren: Great.
Rachael: Yeah, so I really want to get to the ceramic studio this weekend. That's my goal. Besides cleaning my home, I would like to do that, and yeah, get going on some projects.
I feel like I've talked about this in past episodes, but in winter, I feel very much like I'm hibernating, leaning into that part of the season, really doing a lot of processing in my brain, and then I hit this sort of point of agitation. It happens to me every year around this time between February and March where I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I have so many ideas, but my body is still tired," and so I feel really flustered and agitated, like I don't have the energy to execute my ideas. And I'm feeling like I'm starting to hit the point of I'm ready to execute. I'm ready to get things going and moving, especially the sunshine. We had a 70 degree day the other day.
Lauren: Oh my gosh! I know.
Rachael: And that helps a lot, which makes sense, right? The plants are starting to grow during that time when it's warm enough. Things are moving at that time instead of just being underground, waiting to bust out of the seed.
So yeah, check in with me next episode or next couple of episodes, and maybe I'll have a project going by then.
Lauren: It's all good. Yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. Cool. You did the Patreon last time.
Lauren: Yeah, you're on.
Rachael: I can plug us. Okay.
If you would like to support us beyond listening and rating and reviewing and sending your favorite episode to someone who might enjoy it, which you are also invited to do, if you have capacity and are interested in joining the Patreon, we have a few different tiers where you can get access to some behind-the-scenes stuff. We have some extra little treats for the patrons, and then we also have our, what did you call it last time, like the super tier?
Lauren: Yeah, our mega tier.
Rachael: Mega tier.
Lauren: Listener-supported ads where we'll shout out your Chaotic Creative project to all the other Chaotic Creatives. And what else do we... Oh, you can also get discounts on both Rachael and I's courses and offerings, which is kind of cool, and yeah.
Rachael: Yeah. We have some fun little projects that we are excited to share that's Patreon-only.
Lauren: Yeah, you can hear us gab more.
Rachael: Yeah, gab more, gab even about topics that maybe, yeah, they're paywalled. Cool. Please support us if you can.
Lauren: Yep. The link is in the show notes or you can to patreon.com/chaoticcreatives.
Rachael: And we have never in the history of the podcast shared what our own websites are, but in this moment, I'm like, obviously you should check out our websites too and our offerings. I'm rachaelrenae.com, R-A-C-H-A-E-L-R-E-N-A-E.
Lauren: Ooh, ooh.
Rachael: Yeah, tricky.
Lauren: Yeah, good luck with that one. Just kidding. And you can find me everywhere on the internet. It's Hom Sweet Hom. It's like home without the Es in home.
Rachael: Great. We got lots of stuff. We have lots of things to share with you beyond just our gabbing and ideas.
Lauren: Yeah, and I guess by the time this comes out, we hope you're having a great summer.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. I hope we are too.
Lauren: I hope I'm tan. I hope I'm drinking pina coladas.
Rachael: I hope I'm not tan. I'm like SPF 50, 100 all the way.
Lauren: I hope you're not tan either.
Rachael: I would love for you to be drinking pina coladas.
Lauren: Yeah, I'm going to change three shades.
Rachael: Yeah, okay.
Lauren: I'm going to have to buy new makeup. I've got a islander, Japanese blood.
Rachael: Please, for the love of God, throw the old stuff away and don't try to recycle it.
Lauren: Yes.
Rachael: If you are unfamiliar with why I said that, in a previous season, Lauren shared her journey of recycling makeup into new different types of makeup and had a bad reaction.
Lauren: I think I gave myself hives by taking three-year-old lip stain and mixing it together with other products to make lip gloss.
Rachael: You were trying to be a chemist.
Lauren: I know. I'm just a little upcycler.
Rachael: You are and that is admirable, and now we know that that is a realm that upcycling should not apply to.
Lauren: Oh, yeah. I guess after we're done with this, I promised Kristle that I would... She has like eight candles that are done, but there's a little bit of wax left in the candle, and she's like, "Didn't you do that thing where you melted them all together into one mega candle?" And I was like, "Yeah, I can do that with all your little candles," and I was going to record a tutorial of it, but I don't want the internet to yell at me because I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that because I just pop them in the oven to melt the wax really quick. I'm sure it releases some kind of toxic fume, but I've got candle wicks and new jars, and you can make a weird-smelling new candle.
Rachael: Cool.
Lauren: It's just a combination of all your other candles.
Rachael: I look forward to seeing and smelling the result of that.
Lauren: And it probably won't give you hives.
Rachael: At least directly.
Lauren: The only person it could give hives to is me because I'm touching the wax.
Rachael: Yeah, yeah. Unless the combination of the perfumes in the wax will emit something, but let's assume that it won't. I don't think it will.
Lauren: Check back in with me next episode. I'll let you know.
Rachael: Perfect.
Lauren: All right. Thanks for listening. See you in the next one.
Rachael: Thank you. Bye!
Lauren: Bye!