Lisa Call

Design Wall in my Studio

What Are They

I often mention the design walls in my studio and realize that few people, other than textile artists, know what they might be.

A painter uses and easel or sometimes hangs canvases on the wall so they can work on their artwork on a vertical surface. It’s much easier to see the painting and step back from it when painting this way vs. laying the work on a table or the floor.

As I don’t work on a canvas but instead cut out chunks of fabric and move them around to design my compositions so an easel doesn’t really work for me.

And laying the chunks of fabric on the floor or table doesn’t work for a few reasons. It’s hard to step back and get an overall view of what I’m working on and my cats are famous for rearranging any fabric they find on the floor. Running across the room at full speed and plowing into it is a favorite sporting event for them.

So I need a large vertical surface in which to work. Enter the design wall.

There are several variation on this idea and I’ve found that what works best for me is to take 4′x8′ sheets of insulating styrofoam and cover them in flannel. The flannel acts as a magnet and small pieces of fabric cling to it without pinning, making it an ideal work surface as I can move bits around with no hassle.

For larger pieces the insulation is the perfect pinning material for me. It’s very easy to get the pins in and dense enough to hold up large work.

I have ~48 linear feet of design wall in my new studio and most of it is in use all of the time.

How I Build Them

I start with 4′x8′ sheets of white styrofoam insulation (I think they call this stuff Block-molded Expanded Polystyrene – nice huh!)

The brand name of this stuff is insulfoam. I get it from home depot here in the Colorado and I use the 1″ thick sheets. I think it is not available in all parts of the country so you might have to hunt around – or contact them through the website above to see where you can get some.

This ‘how-to’ should answer all the questions I’ve been asked about how I build my design walls. If you have further questions please leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them there.

1) Cut the foam to fit the wall. I cut around windows and electrical plugs, etc using a box cutter and my acrylic rulers to get a straight edge. Anything that gets in the way or needs to be exposed. I do this in parts as it takes several sections to build a wall (well – if your wall is larger than 4′x8′).

This small piece that fits around my built in table and the window sill:

2) Layout all the pieces on the floor and glue them together. You can’t see it well in this photo but in a later one it’ll be clearer. I take sections of poster board and put glue on them and then use short straight pins to hold the poster board in place.

The main purpose of this is to hold the design wall together enough to get it in place.

These 2 sections of foam are ready to be glued together – I put this photo in so you could see the back side of styrofoam. One side is white – the other all this blue writing. Definitely put the blue writing to the back!

3) After the wall is assembled and the glue is dry set it out of the way. Note the hole is for the electrical outlet and this design wall is upside down from how it will be installed (my outlets are really near the floor like everyone else’s)

4) Sew together a bunch of flannel so it is about 10″ bigger than the foam wall. I buy cheap white flannel from joann fabrics when they have it 1/2 off as it takes yards and yards of this stuff. I bought over 100 yards of flannel to do my new studio.

I press the seams open.

5) Lay the fabric out on the floor, right side down, and pull it taut. You can pin it in place if need be.

6) Lay the wall on top of the flannel, right side down.

7) Pull the flannel to the back of the wall in pin in place. You can see the bits of poster board I use to hold it all together in this photo also.

Pinning around the cutouts isn’t the easiest but just muck it around as best you can. I add some bits to the electrical cutouts to cover the edge of the styrofoam.

8) This is a wall covered in flannel ready to be screwed on the wall. I don’t cover my baseboards so the wall has to be lifted up over them. (This isn’t the same wall as in the other photos – I seemed to have lost focus and not taken final photos of it).

9) The design wall attached to the wall. I use drywall screws – I think 2″ long ones. I put screws in the corners and where it seems like I need one. If the boards are straight you don’t need very many.

Having help to put these in place is very handy but not necessary – I installed all of my walls with no help, including my largest wall that is 12′ x 11′.

On a Roll

Yesterday I completed the South African Impressions project by wrapping up some loss ends and posting the final photos.

Today I finally finished putting up the design walls in my new studio. I did a huge home remodel/addition last year and the house and new studio were completed at the beginning of April. More details on building a studio are here, and all my construction photos are here.

I got all but 16 feet of design wall up and then stalled on the project. Between show deadlines, travels to Europe and family issues there never seemed to be time to tackle this last bit.

Which means I’ve been using my studio with this pile of styrofoam sitting in the corner the last 8 months and it’s been really bugging me:

 
to add to the unfinished energy-draining look this ladder has sat in the corner for 8 months:

Work

Determined not to start the new year with this mess still in my studio today was the day for putting up the remaining walls. The day started off on the wrong foot and after 5 hours of being awake I finally made it up the studio. Serious avoidance going on I believe.

The first wall went up quickly as most of the work was done on it and it was small – just 4′ by 11′.

The second wall was not as cooperative. Big mental block – how as I going to put a 12′ x 11′ wall up by myself and did I have room on the floor and how was I going to cut that angle to match the ceiling and on and on.

With many (as in hours) of breaks on facebook I made it through the project and the answer to all the questions was “it’ll all work out”.

First step was to cut the styrofoam to fit the space (holes for outlets and the angle at the top) and to assemble three 8′ x 4′ sheets so it was 1 big wall (I do this with pins, glue and poster board – I’ll post photos tomorrow of details).

Here’s the wall all pieced together – and look at that – it fits perfectly. I love it when life is easy (if you click to see the larger picture you can see the seams between the pieces of styrofoam):

Next up is covering the thing in flannel (because fabric sticks to flannel without pins – static is very handy). This is a major project sewing together 44 yards of flannel into a big sheet. Again – detail photos tomorrow.

The Results

Once covered in flannel the styrofoam is screwed to wall and wa-la – design wall. Here it is in all it’s glory – 12 feet long and over 11′ high at the peak (in the corner is my last unfinished project in the studio before I start work for my solo show – hand dyed fabric for sale – I need to photograph it and get it listed – it’s been waiting 6 months):

Here’s the other design wall I put up today. This corner is my storage corner for work in progress. The other 3 big walls are working walls – so I can 3 huge textile paintings going or up to 6 or 7 smaller in the works at the same time.

The quilts in these storage walls are the larger pieces from the South African Impressions Project. They are ready to be quilted. Also some labels and bindings and other misc hanging out:

I did an additional 2 hours of cleaning in the studio and set up this table where I had a pile of stuff no longer needed. Now my kids can bring their lap tops up the studio and do their homework with me instead of hanging in their rooms (I’m sure they are just thrilled with that idea):

And since I was showing everything else here is the design wall I use most often as it is closest to my cutting table.

One thing I wasn’t sure about is what it would look like above the windows with the design walls on either side of them. Looks okay and it’s a great place to hang art and misc.

Above the furthest window are some toys I bought in South Africa. Love the wood.

And so now, 8 months later I can dance in the studio again. The energy is quite different now that it is done. Here’s to completion!
 

Laundry Room as Dye Studio

I did not include a separate room for my dye studio in this house. I considered it but since I don’t dye fabric very often it seemed like a waste of space. My plan this time around was to either dye fabric outside or in the garage or maybe laundry room.

I did preplan a utility sink and some counter space in the laundry next to the washing machine to facilitate the rinsing and washing of the fabric and for dyeing small batches of fabric.

 
As it turns out, the laundry room ended up much larger than planned (clearly the universe telling me I deserved a nice space to dye fabric) so I will able to set up a table and do all of my dyeing in there. In my old house the dye studio was in the basement and I had to carry the tubs of dye/fabric upstairs to my laundry room. Now it’s all going to be conveniently co-located.

Flooring

 
While it was easy to pick flooring for the studio, it was a bit more work to pick out the perfect flooring for the laundry room/dye studio.

It goes without saying I would be spilling dye on the floor, so tile was out. The dye is a fiber reactive dye the chemically bonds to natural fibers, so it won’t bond to other surfaces and can be wiped up without leaving color.

The problem with tile is the grout lines – too hard to clean and keep the dye from soaking in where it can’t be wiped up. With the new grout sealers it might have been okay but that is too high maintenance for me. Plus I’m really not a big fan of tile. Too hard and cold for my tastes.

The woman that helped me with all of my flooring, suggested some very cool and durable vinyl tiles that are used in many industrial sites. They ones I picked were designed to look like painted concrete and are very smooth. The manufacturer was Burke and I’d link to their website but it seems to not work.

I painted the walls a color to compliment the flooring. Since I don’t do very precise color matching when I dye I didn’t worry about how this might effect the results. Although it will be interesting to see if my palette shifts from by unfinished basement dyeing days to peachy colored laundry room dyeing.

Lighting

 
I knew I would be able to do my fabric dyeing in the laundry room when it was time to pick out lighting so I went with a nice fluorescent fixture that took 4 T-8 bulbs. I have daylight neutral bulbs (generic ones from Lowes – not fancy expensive ones this time).

It’s a bit of overkill for the family doing their laundry but with the window in the door to the outside the light isn’t used all that often. It will come in very handy for dyeing fabric.

Storage

 
Dyeing fabric takes a lot of supplies: plastic bins, measuring stuff, dye, etc etc. So instead of a big coat closet (for very few coats) I repurposed the laundry room closet into a dye supply (and misc art supply) closet.

Everything I need to dye fabric is in this closet except the fabric, which I keep in my studio storage because I have to cut it into 1 yard lengths before I dye. It’ll all be very convenient and easy to do a batch of dyeing and then clean up.

I’m planning to do my first batch of dyeing in the new setup over memorial day weekend and am really looking forward to it.

Quilt National 2009

Memorial day weekend is the opening of Quilt National 2009, the fabulous biennial show of some of the best contemporary textile/quilt art always has some interesting artwork to enjoy.

I thought I might be bummed around the opening since my work was not accepted this time around but I’m so busy with my own projects it’s not an issue. I do want to extend a big congratulations to everyone that does have work in the show.

I won’t be going to the opening but I’ll definitely be purchasing the catalog, which is now available on amazon: Quilt National 2009 Catalog. If you are going to the opening – enjoy.

Why Carpet

The decision on flooring was very easy for me. I knew I wanted carpet.

I baste my textile paintings (aka quilts) on the floor and the carpet is a key element in getting that to turn out correctly for me. I wrote a long how-to article on how I baste that you can read here: Basting a Quilt (that post also explains what basting is for those that aren’t quilters and are curious).

I also do a lot of sitting on the floor. Not just in the studio but in my entire house. Having concrete and chip board floors covered in drywall muck during the construction was one of the biggest challenge for me – who wants to sit on that!

I do have hardwood in the kitchen/living room but bedrooms have to be carpet in my house. My real estate agent says for resell carpet is the best for offices because anything else tends to echo too much (at least that is what she told me when I recarpeted my old house to sell it). I end up sitting on the floor to sort papers often so it’s definitely my choice also.

I have a thought in the future I’ll do more painting and the carpet is definitely not the ideal floor surface for such work, but I’m sure I’ll find a solution. Like a drop cloth.

I considered doing a section of the studio floor in something more paint friendly but decided it wasn’t worth the effort to figure out. I think those thoughts were near the end of the 6 months of construction.

Which Carpet

I knew exactly what kind of carpet I needed in my studio because of how I baste the quilts on it. Low cut pile carpet that is dense and very flat and smooth.

I also wanted it to be soft so I bought a stainmaster carpet with tactesse. Amazing stuff – really soft. The style was called Boston Bay at my store but I can’t find a link to it online.

The color is call pasta and is on the warmer/yellowish side of white since the walls were so pure white white. It is a nice contrast and balance.

The carpet in the rest of my house is also a stainmaster carpet with tactesse but it is darker and shaggier and has flecks. I had builders grade carpet throughout my last house so this stuff is a treat – really dense and thick and very nice.

The only draw back with this great carpet is my cat thinks I have put a scratching post on the floor for her. She wasn’t a fan of builders grade but this tactese – she’s all in favor of soft.

Collectible Small Art

Lines #22
Lisa Call
Textile Painting – Mounted on stretched canvas
©2009
3" x 3"
$75
Purchase Here

 
I emailed my studio newsletter out yesterday morning as planned (you can read it here if you aren’t a subscriber – this is probably the last issue that will be available online for non-subscribers as I’m changing the format of my newsletters a bit – subscribe here) and asked people what they thought about using the term Collectible Small Art.

I’ve gotten some really great answers back:

- Calling Card (I love this for my ACEOs – definitely going to use it – or a variation of some sort maybe written Call-ing Card)
- Petite Art
- Intimate Art

The article in the newsletter is about Chamber music and how it relates to small artwork. I’d love to call the small pieces Chamber Art but that really just sounds like Chamber Pot to me so, well, no. Ha.

I’d love to hear your thoughts also.

Evaluating Electrical Needs

Instead of going with standard code for my electrical outlets, putting them every 12 feet (or something like that) I spent some time evaluating exactly what I wanted and needed in my studio. So I made a list of the stuff that I need to plug in:

• Sewing machines (2)
• Iron
• Swing arm lamps (maybe – but planning for them)
• Stereo
• Vacuum Cleaner

Not a lot of stuff – no coffee maker or tv. Only the iron was the big deal – they take a lot of power. So I selected the locations for the outlets based on where I wanted my tables and they put in two 20-amp circuits for everything but the irons.

The Iron Solution

Irons require a dedicated 15 amp circuit if they are going to be powered up properly. Putting 2 or more irons on a single circuit is a good way to trip the breaker, and since I have arc fault circuit breakers throughout the entire house (required by code in Denver) things trip if you just look at them funny. They are safer, just a bit annoying with how easily they are tripped.

[As a side note, since I'm talking about electricity, I also have child safety plugs for all my plugs. No need for those plastic covers on these plugs - its built into the plug - which makes plugging things in much harder. Took me a while to figure out how to get them to work - the plug has to go in exactly straight or it won't work. The GFCI child safety plugs in the kitchen are the most difficult - I swear the reason they are safe is cause it's impossible to plug anything in - ha.]

So, back to irons. In addition to my need of using an iron in different places throughout the studio, I also want to use my studio to teach classes someday. So we’ll need multiple irons going at once when that happens.

I decided to have them also put in six 15-amp circuits for irons. I selected 6 of the outlets in the studio and the bottom plug for that outlet is a dedicated circuit for an iron. It’s pretty convenient to be able to plug an iron in all around the studio and always have it get as hot as possible.

More Safety

I didn’t want to worry if I really turned my iron off or not (it’s easy to forget). And when teaching I really didn’t want to have to worry if everyone turned off their irons when we left the studio for the evening.

Solution – I put all of the dedicated circuits on a single switch. So I can turn all the iron circuits off and on at a flip of a light switch. On my way out of the studio I hit the switch and know all irons are off. This assumes irons are only plugged into the correct switches, which I’m going to just go ahead and assume.

To make this work they had to wire these all into some contact switch kind of thing – when I hit the switch it makes a big thunking sound. It’s pretty clever (although it makes the cats jump – and the kids find it amusing so they play with it a bit too much).

A big thanks to the person on quiltart that suggested this to me (sorry – can’t remember who it was). Great idea.

The result is I have 8 switches to run the studio: 4 for the indirect fluorescent lights, 2 for track lights, 1 for my irons and the 8th is for the lights in the stairway.

Structures #83
Lisa Call
Textile Painting
©2007
12"x12"

Getting Unstuck

Almost a month ago I said I’d be sending out my studio newsletter soon. Then I got stuck. The photos I took of some new artwork aren’t working.

Lime green and fuschia have given me a lot of problems. I messed with the images for a while (the problem is an annoying color shift when I save for web – even though I have the sRGB color profile attached). Got frustrated.

Then I realized I’ve been saying for years I needed to really learn how to use photoshop and my camera properly and it was time to do that and stop getting stuck over photography. I hunted around for photoshop classes in Denver and didn’t find anything that fit my exact needs.

Then I started thinking I didn’t want to sit around in class for hours in hopes they might cover what I wanted to learn. I’ve been using photoshop for 4 years and know some stuff. Plus I want to learn photography also, not just photoshop. The group classes thing was suddenly not sounding so good.

Then I stumbled upon someone that taught both photoshop and photography and also taught private classes. Perfect. So I’ve signed up for private lessons later this month and am looking forward to moving past this issue that has blocked me more than I’d like to admit.

Newsletter Is a Go

In the meantime my photos are still not working and I’ve decided to circumvent the problem and get my newsletter sent out anyway and skip those photos for now. No more delays.

Tonight at 7pm (MDT) I’ll be drawing the name for the winner of Structures #83 from the list of all current newsletter subscribers and tomorrow morning I’ll mail out the newsletter. So tonight will be an evening of writing (hence the morning blog post so I didn’t use blogging as an excuse for not doing the newsletter also).

So if you aren’t yet a subscriber and would like to be – sign up here: Lisa’s Studio Newsletter. If you are already a subscriber you are automatically included in the drawing.

So Many Whites

Continuing on with my series on building a studio – today – paint color.

I spent a lot of time pondering over paint color for the studio. I always planned on painting it white but there are somewhere near a zillion whites to choose from. I had stacks of white paint chips and spent a few weeks looking at them and asking other people what they did.

I decided to go with a very cool pure white – white. From my unscientific surveys this wasn’t a common answer – most people tended to go with a warmer white.

The color I picked is called Mistaya from Kwal paint – the number is CLW1042W. In a gallon of paint there are only something like 2 1/2 drops of color added to their pure white. It’s very slightly on the warmer side of a pure blueish white but still very very white.

I painted the walls and ceiling of the studio with this color and carried it throughout the house and painted all of my ceilings Mistaya white also.

The paint is flat – no shine to it, which is the look I prefer on walls.

The trim throughout the studio and house (including all trim, baseboards and doors) is a fairly standard creamy white they call Aspen white at Kwal paint. The trim is satin. Love the flat white white walls with the creamier shiny trim next to it.

With my indirect fluorescent lights and the white what walls it looks very clean and crisp in my studio. Great place for doing color work.

Accent Wall

My studio is open to the house below and I really didn’t want to leave the big stairway wall white as I painted all the other walls in my house colors. So I made the decision to carry a light chocolate brown color from the house up into the studio.

Colors are relative based on the colors next to them so I was only willing to do this because this wall is not adjacent to any of my design walls and is unlikely to affect my work. Or then again maybe it will but so far it hasn’t bothered me and I really love having the color on that wall.

This paint is from Behr (Home Depot) – color is French Castle #770A-3. As with all the walls other than bathrooms and kitchen, it’s flat.

Facebook Fan Page

For those of you on facebook I’ve created a fan page for my textile paintings. T

My plan is to post more in progress photos on the page, along with new art and other news from my studio. I’ll up date it every couple days with something. I love facebook (and twitter) because the updates are short. Great way to keep up with people without the pressure to write long missives.

So if you are interested please check it out here: Lisa’s Textile Painting fan page.

You are also invited to friend me on facebook and/or follow me on twitter.

I think fan pages are public so I believe you should be able to see it even if you aren’t on facebook and don’t want to join but want to check it out. The fan page.

PDF Fabric for Sale

It’s warming up outside and spring is in the air. What does this mean for textile artists? It means our thoughts turn to dyeing fabric (an activity that is best done in warm/hot weather). My first dyeing day is on the schedule for memorial day weekend – I’m excited. Creating color!

The requests for purchasing the PDF (prepared for dyeing) fabric I use have been picking up so I created a new webpage to make this process easier for everyone. I even put in buy it now buttons – yay for paypal.

Check out the PDF Fabric for Sale page if you dye fabric.

The Series

The other posts in the Studio Lighting series:

Studio Lighting – Part I – Requirements & Why I went with Fluorescent
Studio Lighting – Part II – Indirect fluorescents in the Studio
Studio Lighting – Part III – Solux Track Lighting

Today’s post is a discussion of other lighting needs in the studio.

The Remaining Requirements

In the inital post I listed the requirements I identified for my studio lighting as follows:

1) Provide enough light at all times (day and night) to be able to do color work through out the studio
2) Be as energy efficient as possible
3) Provide enough task lighting at my sewing machine and cutting tables to do that work
4) Provide gallery style lighting for open studio events
5) Provide lighting similar to regular home lighting to see how my art will look in those conditions

I’ve covered #1,2 and 4 in the first three parts of this series. Leaving a discussion of task lighting and regular home lighting for this post.

Task Lighting

First step was to identify the tasks that I do in my studio and then determine if I would need more lighting for that job.

This is my list (based on what I needed in my last studio):

1) Working at my sewing machine
2) Working at my cutting table
3) Painting canvases (to mount my textile paintings) and doing design work at a worktable

My hope was that the indirect fluorescents would provide enough light for all of these tasks. In my previous studio that was definitely not the case and I used swing arm lamps to add more light.

Now that the studio is up and running it looks like I was right and that no additional lighting for specific tasks will be needed. Currently the lightbulb is burned out on one of my sewing machines and I’m using a swing arm, but I think once it is replaced it will be fine. So the jury is still out on this.

I definitely have enough light at my cutting table as one of the fluorescent light banks runs right over the top of the table (by design). Even at night with no outside light coming in through the window it’s great.

I haven’t set up a table for painting the canvases but have done some design work at other tables and it is again excellent. Have good quality light throughout the studio from the indirect fluorescents is such a treat. I’m still amazed every time I turn them on and realize I don’t need any other lights.

Home Lighting Conditions

My final requirement was to replicate normal home lighting conditions to see what my artwork will look like in most homes. This is where I didn’t do a very good job.

At some point in the lighting process I told the builders I would be putting some can lights in the studio for this reason. And then somewhere along the way I dropped this idea. I can’t really remember exactly when I dropped this but I know it had to do with cost and the thought that it was total overkill (forgetting the need to replicate normal lighting conditions in that thought).

I should have trusted my original plans on the can lights and not second guessed myself just because the builders looked at me funny when I would tell them I was going to put 3 different types of lights in the studio. I’ve forgiven myself and moved on but good lesson learned – I really do know what I want and why!

Retrofitting can lights in the my vaulted ceiling isn’t an option as there is essentially no attic so this is what it is. I will have to carry my artwork to other parts of my house. Not a huge deal, and if I had to pick something to not be perfect this would be the thing to turn out this way.

When I build my next studio I’ll put in the can lights (I’ve already told my builder that after I make my first million from my art I’ll have him build and ever more grand and gorgeous studio for me).

The Series

The other posts in the Studio Lighting series:

Studio Lighting – Part I – Requirements & Why I went with Fluorescent
Studio Lighting – Part II – Indirect fluorescents in the Studio
Studio Lighting – Part IV – coming soon

Today’s post is a discussion of the track lighting I installed in addition to the indirect fluorescent fixtures.

Why Tracks

One of my requirements for lighting my studio was to have gallery style lighting for open studio type events and for seeing how my art will look in this circumstances. The indirect fluorescents were far from what I needed for this.

So I also put in 2 set of track lights over 2 of my design walls. I was going to do 3 but the fluorescents wouldn’t fit with them. So only 2 of 3 long walls has track lighting.

Why Solux

I did a lot of investigating of track lights and it quickly became clear that the Solux lights were by far the best choice. The blurb from their website:

SoLux is a patented light source that provides an unparalleled replication of natural daylight. No other light source in the world matches daylight more closely than SoLux. SoLux is used in many of the world’s top museums including the Van Gogh Museum. SoLux is also an environmentally friendly light source. SoLux is more energy efficient than incandescent sources and does not contain mercury found in fluorescent lights sources.

These bulbs have a CRI (color rendering index) of about 98.3. This is about as close to real daylight (CRI of 100) as one can get in a light bulb. They come in several different color temperatures and a light spreads (the angle of the light from the bulb – from spots to wide angle).

My Choices

I hunted all over the web for a reference on how far from the wall and at what angle for track lights should be installed and found pretty much no useful information. So again I just took an educated guess on what to buy.

Because I was putting 5500K fluorescent lights I decided to go with warmer lights for the tracks. The bulbs I bought are the 4100K lights and I bought the 24 degree narrow flood lights. With my 10 foot high ceilings I made an educated guess this would work to wash the wall in light.

I also had to make a guess on how many heads/bulbs I would need. I put in 1 eight foot track and 1 sixteen foot track. I decided on 11 heads total with them spaced about 3 feet apart.

I put each of the tracks on a different switch so I could turn them on and off separately.

How it’s Working

As you can see from the photo above the tracks are probably a bit too close to the wall and the bulbs might work better if they were the wide angle floods instead of the narrow.

When these bulbs burn out I’ll replace them with the widest angle floods they sell so I have less spot lighting. I’m also going to change the angle of the heads so they hit a bit higher up on the wall and I think that will help for now.

Still they look really great and I love them. They are also excellent for doing color work even thought they are only 4100K because of the high CRI.

One way I’ve found that works great for working in the studio is to turn the fluorescents on over my work areas and the tracks on over the design wall. Makes for a nice combination of lights.

I have to say the light from these bulbs is the most amazing and beautiful light I have ever seen from a light bulb. My indirect fluorescents are awesome but these solux bulbs are incredible. Beautiful beautiful light.

The Cost

I ended up ordering the entire system from Solux because their tracks were cheaper than the lighting store I was working with (even with the contractor discount). The total cost for 24 feet of track plus heads/bulbs and all the connectors was $670.

So total cost for my studio lights was about $5000 – again – my art is absolutely work that investment.

My final post about studio lighting, coming soon – hopefully tomorrow, will be about task lighting and my requirement to see my work under normal home lighting conditions.

The Series

The other posts in the Studio Lighting series:

Studio Lighting – Part I – Requirements & Why I went with Fluorescent
Studio Lighting – Part III – coming soon
Studio Lighting – Part IV – coming soon

Today’s post is a discussion of the installation of the indirect fluorescent lights I selected for whole studio lighting and how they are performing.

The Fixtures

The fixtures I ordered (link to lights on the manufacturer’s website) had to be manufactured and it was an exciting day when the finally arrived at the studio. There are seven 8 foot long fixtures and one 4 foot long fixture (which was not installed) in this pile:

This is what the fixtures looked like before they were installed (the gold stuff is just plastic protecting the very shiny silver surface that helps reflect the light):

Installation

For those that followed my blog and construction photo journal know that the installation of these lights was not a smooth process.

They had to be sent back to the manufacturer after the first failed installation attempt to be rewired. Then I had to remove one of the lights cause it turned out they didn’t fit (due to end caps that they sort of forgot to tell me out). There were some cancellations by the electricians, a sketchy incident with them being locked out of the house but after 6 or 7 scheduled appointments they were finally installed.

During that time the lights sat piled up in my studio collecting dust:

Finally the electrician and Carl (the guy in charge of my project) got the lights installed. The lights are bolted together into long runs and then suspended from the ceiling on wires. It was a bit of a tricky job but they did an excellent job of hanging them straight:

Installed

This is what they look like installed – the light is bounced off the ceiling and throughout the entire room. I have them just a foot off the ceiling because I don’t want them to block the design walls so quite a bit of light pools on the ceiling. They would probably look a bit better hanging at 18″ down but for my application this is how I want them.

There are 3 runs of lights running the length of the studio, which is 27 feet long and 20 feet wide. Two of the runs are 16 feet long and the third is 24 ft long. The shorter runs are because I don’t need to light up the stairway area (floor plan).

Because energy efficiency was a concern I have the lights on 4 switches. The shorter runs each have their own switch and the longer run is broken into 2 switches. This way I can turn on only a few lights if I’m doing work in just one area of my studio.

How They Perform

I didn’t get to see these things in person so I had to guess how many runs of lights I would need. I went with 3 and it seems to be about perfect – one down the center and 2 closer to the walls. The runs are about 7 feet apart.

Each 4 foot section of light holds 3 T5 bulbs so with seven 8 foot fixtures that is 42 bulbs.

This seems to be about perfect. I have even light throughout the studio without any areas that feel to dark or too light.

The color of the light (5500K with a CRI of 91 – see part I for more info on the bulbs) is perfect for my needs. I can do color work day and night without a problem and it’s a really good light for photographing my artwork.

Basically these lights turned out to be exactly what I wanted. There was a lot of guess work involved but in the end it worked out well. If I built another studio I would install the same lights in pretty much the same configuration.

The Cost

Several people have asked so figured I might as well just include this in the post. These lights aren’t cheap. I got the contractor’s discount on these fixtures and they were still $450 a piece, with tax it came to about $3500 for the fixtures. The bulbs were another $600 (I order 2 cases of 25 at $11.50 per bulb, plus shipping).

My artwork and I are so totally worth this investment.

Requirements

When I first started designing my studio I knew good lighting was one of the most important features of the room. So I started by identifying my goals for my lighting solution:

1) Provide enough light at all times (day and night) to be able to do color work through out the studio – preferably without any harsh glare
2) Be as energy efficient as possible
3) Provide enough task lighting at my sewing machine and cutting tables to do that work
4) Provide gallery style lighting for open studio events
5) Provide lighting similar to regular home lighting to see how my art will look in those conditions

Research

I considered hiring a lighting designer to help me but I didn’t plan far enough in advance.

So it was me and the internet in search of lighting solutions when we came down to the deadline (electricians on ladders asking where they should run wire).

Between websites, blogs and questions posted to large fiber artist mailing lists I was able to make a darn good guess at what I wanted. [thanks to everyone that generously shared their information - I am very grateful].

The first 2 posts will cover #1 and #2 (whole studio lighting) – the most important requirements. I’ll finish off talking about requirements #3-5. I suspect this is going to take at least 3 if not 4 posts due to my time and the amount of information I have to share.

What Didn’t Work

I would have preferred some type of LED lighting solution for the full studio lighting because of requirement #2 but I couldn’t find anything that was suitable. There are some nice LED can lights that I learned about too late. I’m not sure they would have done the trick but they might have. I’d like to put these in my kitchen when I get the money (they are about $100 each and can be fit into regular can fixtures).

I would have also loved to go with some type of daylighting solution and put in a ton of solatubes for natural light during the day, but I would have needed a ton and at $650 each that was not in the budget. Especially since they only work during the day so it would have been an incomplete solution.

Incandescent lighting wasn’t going to fulfill the energy efficient requirement for the full studio lighting so I didn’t consider it.

What Did Work

So that left me with fluorescent.

I did a lot of reading and asking about types of fluorescent bulbs and fixtures googling numerous and various key words about lighting and studio and who knows what. I love google and the internet – there is nothing one can’t learn it seems.

Fixtures
To keep the glare down and provide a more even and softer light I went with indirect fixtures that bounce the light up and off the ceiling with only a very small percent of the light coming straight down into the room.

I’ll talk about the fixtures more in the next post when I post photos of them.

Bulb Type
Next up was a decision on type of bulb. The old big bulbs are T12. There are also T8s (smaller diameter) and T5s (the smallest) that are both more energy efficient. T12 were definitely out because they are significantly less efficient.

Not many people I talked to, including the folks at the lighting store, knew much T5 and T8 bulbs. The best information I could find was this article: T5 Fluorescent Systems. Somewhat technical but not too much so.

From this I decided to go with T5 bulbs. The 2 key deciding factors:

T5s are smaller and so they use less materials = more green. [Reference]

T5s are supposed to maintain their light output over their lifetime better than T8s and T12s. [Reference]. That means consistent light in my studio for the entire 20,000 hour lifetime of the bulbs.

The need for higher heat was a concern but I think that neither T8s or T5 were going to be at their optimal temperature for the indirect fixtures I wanted (T8s too hot and T5 too cold) and somewhere in the middle they meet and figured they were both close to optimal but not quite there – so that was a wash.

I knew the T5s would be more expensive being newer but they were also likely to provide more light as I could put 3 of them in a 4 foot length of fixture vs just 2 of the T8s. So again a plus for the T5s.

It was a bit of a gamble as I couldn’t find any place to see these in person (the lighting store only had T12 indirects installed). Just had to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

The Bulbs – Color Temperature and CRI
The lighting store didn’t have high quality T5 bulbs so again I turned to the internet to find what I wanted. I was after something very close to daylight and with a very high CRI (color rendering index).

And exhaustive (or maybe just exhausting) search came up with these as my best option: T5 5500K 91 CRI bulbs. Very close to daylight with a high CRI.

 
So that’s the technical stuff and the decisions I made on what to order. Tomorrow I’ll show what it looks like with photos and talk about how well it’s working.