Sharing Studio Space.......with a Toddler

I love having my studio in my home. It allows me to work when I can and shut the door on the mess. Ideally, I’d spend hours alone in the studio everyday, able to fully concentrate on my work.

But that’s not reality right now. ;) Trying to grow a business and having a toddler at home means that she is sometimes in that space with me. She (mostly) keeps to her art area and I get some things done, and then sometimes she is all over the place. She gets very curious about my brushes, charcoal pencils and exacto knives. Which means when we’re in there together I’ve got one eye on the toddler.

I sometimes work at naptime, but most of the work is done in the evenings, when I can turn the music on without worrying about listening for a waking toddler. To be totally honest, I really prefer having my evenings off when my husband and the older two kids are home, so I go back and forth, depending on project deadlines, between working several nights and taking most nights off.

I pretty much constantly feel like theres’ not enough time to get the things done I’d like to, in a timely manner. In addition to growing an online business, I sell my art at a few stores in different locations. Getting inventory ready for them is often weeks behind where I wanted to be.

So, I give myself some grace, resolve to be ok with not checking everything off the to-do and sometimes……..I share the studio space. I bring her in with me and work on smaller, quicker tasks that I can do while still keeping half my brain attentive to what she’s doing. This is when I tag items, gesso canvas’s, do under-paintings, or just get things cleaned up.

She has her own little space set up with markers, pastels and crayons. But, like I’ve mentioned, she’s a very active toddler. Her own desk keeps her attention for a little while, but eventually she starts wondering around, seeing what tools of mine she can get away with stealing.

I don’t bring her in to the studio everyday, not even every week because I don’t want her to get bored with it. Getting bored with it = more wondering into my off-limits stuff. :) For now, it’s exciting when she gets to go in there.

She knows she’s free to grab my brushes and pretend paint on canvas’s, but once in a great while, I get the actual paints out and her day is made! Paint days are hands down her favorite. It’s another thing we only do sometimes so that it’s a treat that she doesn’t expect every time.

It’s always a struggle to get as much studio time in as I’d like. There’s a constant ebb and flow of work and rest. Usually the work is happening when I’m preparing for a show or a release and there’s some pretty late nights and lots of extra coffee. And once the show/release is over I typically plan to take a rest for a week or so, only showing up in the studio casually here and there for short amounts of time. Often times, that rest ends up lasting 2-4 weeks because I really enjoy my evenings off. :) And then I start to feel behind and flow back into work sessions, squeezing in shared studio time here and there to help move things along.

To be honest, it can be a frustrating dance where I never feel like I’m getting to every job I would like to get to. Some things seem to perpetually be in the “idea” bucket for later. BUT…….she’s almost 3 and I swear it was just like 6 months ago I gave birth to her. And I remind myself of that frequently. These past 6 years as a full time artist I have always dialed work hours waaaay back and taken it easy during the summer while the older kids were home. And then during the school year I had 5 glorious days a week (during the DAY!).

She’ll be starting part-time preschool twice a week in the fall and before I know it she’ll be in school 5 days a week with the big kids, and I know in my knower, from experience, I’ll long for the days when she was little and snuggled up on my lap during the day.

Having two older kids (one graduating HS next year!) as a reminder of how fast time flies truly helps me be at peace with the ebb and flow and the constant struggle to figure out a better schedule.