Nikki Kress is a neighbor and an artist in our neighborhood. With the help of her husband Gregg, she converted her garage into a painting studio. So what is it like to be a professional artist with a home studio? Here’s Nikki’s reflection.

While I work, I open the entire wall in addition to windows for ventilation and light. When I need to look away from the painting that I have been working on for hours, my view is the first signs of spring on my neighbor’s new trees. I am able to see their home improvements progress and their children grow. I have the experience of seeing hard work materialize from an outside, yet personal perspective. Our relationship, to me, is inspiring as well as educational. From my studio, while I’m trying to focus and think creatively the pedestrians and cyclists that pass by encourage me. I’m a woman originally from Texas working in a garage for many hours a day in the Pacific Northwest; 50 degrees now feels warm to me.

I’ve been painting as a career artist for 20 years. There have been moments when I didn’t have the time or space to paint. Now the studio is adjacent to my home. A new understanding of what community support can look like, how much I need it, where it comes from and how accessible it is has become clearer to me. Connections made over an extended amount of time after true integrity and character have been established is something I am no longer afraid to commit to.

Opening my studio here in Woodlawn has made me realize how much of an influence community development and empowerment has on my work. The neighbors I meet outside my studio walls are faces that I see on a regular basis. I have more than one opportunity to make a connection with the people that live close to me because (compared to where I have just come from) people don’t move far away from each other as often. Living in a big city among thousands of different faces I may never see again, has become a point of reference.

Woodlawn is the first root I’ve ever planted. With the exception of my long-term friendships and the love of my life, I’ve always been transient living among transients. For me, living in a big city meant, in the very least, many more shallow connections than substantial ones. I have happily begun a settling down process in a “big town/small city.” I’m motivated, inspired, and am on the verge of creating best work of my life here in my Woodlawn studio.

// View Nikki’s work

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.