Work Spaces: Cozink

This week's featured work space comes from Etsy Maine Team member Grace of Cozink.

When we moved from a very tiny house in Litchfield to a larger duplex (we rent 1/2 of an early 1800's farm house) in Mount Vernon- the extra upstairs room got earmarked as a studio space from the get-go. It was one of the first rooms I started working on, and within a week it was set up and ready to use.

My must-haves for inspiration were color, light, and family art. The color was mostly taken care of by hanging prints, and I just commited to never hanging curtains in that room so light was always natural and free-flowing. As for family art... several members of my family have gotten together to form an art and music collective (my shop name comes from this- the CozInk Collective), and I'm pretty much constantly inspired by what the other folks in my family have going on in their creative endeavors.



My studio music collection is made up of my cousin's folk duo Arborea, which she created with her husband, and my brother's many music projects like L/A Comp (a compilation of music local to the Lewiston/Auburn area), Earbait (a project where musicians are all given the same set of lyrics, and each create their own music to go along with those lyrics- the CD gathers the many interpretations on one album), and his band, Sunwell.


Some of the art on the walls is mine, some is family's. The big framed piece over the work table is a print from my very first printmaking experience. I learned printmaking at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer Isle, and I did it through a high school program, where we would go spend a long weekend at Haystack learning a new art form. I did the 3-day printmaking workshop, and on the last day we did these big group prints- they're about 16 x 20, and every student in the workshop worked on each print, then everyone signed each one, and we all got to take one home as a keepsake of our class. It's become a very important piece of artwork in my house, because I so value that weekend at Haystack, and the craft that I learned there. Obviously, it's stayed with me! I even taught a printmaking workshop of my own this summer atSweetland Retreat, so it's kind of come full circle.




The three sunset photos were taken by my sister, Sarah (waterinthesky.etsy.com), who lives in San Diego. The photo above those is one of my all time favorites, because for me it sort of shows the relationship that I have with my brother and sister. When it was taken, I was living in Wyoming, and my brother and sister were still in Maine, but it's kind of a group portrait for me, because the photo (which is a portrait of my brother playing guitar) was taken by my sister, and my brother is playing in front of a few pieces of my artwork. So in a way, we're all in it, or at least all our art is in it. We stay close even though we've each been far from Maine at times, and we stay involved in eachother's lives, and in eachother's creative lives too, so that picture is important to me. It's always in whatever space I'm creating in.