Spring Cleaning for Artists: The Reality of Studio Chaos
Let’s just say it: my “spring cleaning” is mostly theoretical at this point. If your creative space looks less like Pinterest and more like a craft store experienced weather, welcome. You’re among friends.
My studio is that very specific chaos where I buy supplies, lose them, buy them again, and then rediscover the originals while looking for something else entirely. Yarn? I have enough to crochet a small village. Do I know what I own? No. Will that stop me from buying more? Also nope.
The desk is the worst offender. I have exactly three horizontal surfaces in this room, and all reach full capacity the second I start anything. I did try to be responsible and put up a little shelf for shipping boxes. Turns out I own more boxes than shelf. The ones that fit do look extremely organized though, so I’m counting that as growth.
You’d think having a bigger office would help, but no. I used to live in a tiny house, which should’ve trained me for this. It did not. I have cubby shelves coming for the yarn stash, and I’m telling myself this is the moment everything changes. Realistically, I’ll sort by color, admire it for five minutes, then immediately destroy the system while looking for “that one green.”
Also, I should re-introduce management. Sebby, Ginny, and Neville. They contribute by dragging yarn across the room, sleeping on anything soft, and supervising all operations from the exact spot I need to reach. If you’re wondering who runs this studio, it’s not me.
Dream Studio
My dream studio is cozy and functional and has that quiet “you can make things here” feeling. My current goal is simpler. I would like to stop losing glue. Why is it always the glue.
I don’t track supplies, which means my materials exist in a kind of creative black hole. Once the new shelves are up, I’m hoping to at least group things loosely so they stop disappearing. Not organized, just… contained. Like adhesives live together, cutting tools live together, yarn lives together. If I can see it, I can find it. If I can’t see it, I know I own it, I just can’t remember where Past Me decided it should live.
I’ve also realized I need somewhere for whatever I’m actively working on, because otherwise it just spreads across the desk like moss. I’m thinking a shallow tray or basket where the current project goes when I stop. Not a system. Just a boundary.
And I’ve accepted that certain things need duplicates. Glue. Scissors. Tape. One for the desk, one for packing, one for wherever the other two wandered off to. This is not failure. This is adaptation.
Packing orders is still happening at my desk because standing in one place for long stretches is not happening with my body. In a perfect world I’d have a little rolling packing cart that comes to me like a polite butler. For now it’s me, a chair, and whatever level of mess I swore I’d deal with last week.
Anyway
If your studio currently looks like creative weather passed through, you’re not alone. Spring cleaning, for me, isn’t about making it pretty. It’s about small comforts. Being able to find tools. Clearing enough space to sit. Not buying a third steamer because the first two vanished into the void.
If you have a storage trick that works with a real human brain and not a Pinterest robot, I want to hear it. And please tell me the one supply you always lose so I can feel less personally targeted by glue.
- Link to your main collection: Upper Room Prints collection
- Link to your last post: Finding balance and avoiding burnout
- Link to your About page: About Upper Room Prints