Jenn Mason

Hello and welcome to the studio!

Well, not the studio but the open studio.

You may have seen the cover of Cloth Paper Scissors Studios Fall 2009. You would be looking at my home!

This picture at the top? And the one below it? Both of these are "before" pictures of our home as it once stood just two short years ago. A carriage house turned wood worker shop.

The house was built in 1850 and I'm not quite sure how I got past the claustrophobia of it all and saw the possibilites but we made an offer and started construction the day it became ours.

Eventually we'll get to a couple photos of my studio but first I thought I'd show you some behind the scenes look at the photo shoot for the cover. I had always wanted to know what happened at one of these and now I do!

It's a lot of fidgeting things a round, moving lights and MacGyvereing things into place. Although the space stays pretty true to the actual thing, we had to shift things just slightly here

and there to make sure they looked good on camera.

Here you can see that they already have an idea of the cover layout before we even get a real shot. There were two "advance team" trips out to take photos before we had the hired guns show up.

And show up they did. With full sized computers and screens, cameras and lights. We moved around a ton of furniture just to make room for the equipment!

It was really fun to watch the process and I'm honored that I got to play a role in the September issue.

I'm especially proud of it because it's not just my artwork on the walls that I'm able to share with you but also my home. This was a labor of love of both my wonderful husband Matt and I. We designed the whole house by ourselves and we had a wonderful contractor (Stealth Construction). Who gave us everything we wanted and more.

I'm not sure if it really comes across in the photos but that big wall with all the art on it? It's really on a diagonal.

We designed that wall especially for Open Studios here in Brookline, MA.

The space is big and modular making it possible to move a few pieces of furniture and entirely recreate the space.Starting this month I will be teaching workshops in my home/studio. We've hosted a Soup Crawl, book club and during Open Studios I host 4 other artists in the space as well as a mixed media gallery!

So here are a few shots of the actual studio which sits just off this main room in the photo. It makes it easy to stay in touch with the kids while they do their homework and to work on dinner and a project at the same time. I hope it's helpful to hear that I struggle with all the same things that you do. Finding time to make art, keeping the studio cleaned up enough so that I can find things, storage, etc.

A couple of the things I love are the little nook with the shelves (this is where my under the counter cd player lives) and my closet with a sink! OH Joy! And I love that it has punches of electric green in it too.

If you want to find out what I'm up to please feel free to subscribe to my blog. You can also check out my workshop schedule on my Create Everyday Workshop Blog. My personal artist website is www.JennMason.com and you can find out more about my books, licensed artwork and fine art there!

And my latest endeavor is www.EverydayArtistStudio.com where our mission is to encourage you to live more creatively every day, regardless of family plan, age or career path!