Due to the expected snow tonight and tomorrow my solo exhibit opening for Dwelling has been postponed to Sunday, February 28 from 1-4pm, with my artist talk at 2pm.
Apologize to all for any inconvenience.
Gives me an additional week to prepare my talk. And eat the cookies I bought for the show.
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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 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):
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:
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.
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.
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.
Squares #4
Textile Painting
©2006
11" x 9"
Private Collection
Yesterday I stated these were my goals for today:
1) 12 hours in studio
2) blog
3) journal
4) yoga
5) walk
6) to bed by 9:30
I’ve completed #2-#5 and so far I’ve put in 11 hours in the studio. I started at 6am and at 8pm I’d put in 11 hours. The other 3 hours were spent eating and doing the other stuff on the list.
My hope was to be done in the studio now but I ended up taking and extra hour break during the day and I have to admit a fairly large chunk of that time was spent wandering about in the new house addition. It’s just so darn cool to have built the house I want, I’m really excited about it.
I was going to relax and watch a video or read after finishing this blog post but I’ll head back to the studio and put in the last hour instead. I’m on a roll and loving every minute of it.
I can’t post photos of this work because it’s for a show that has requested we not publish the images anywhere prior to the opening, so you’ll have to wait a year to see what I made in my bedroom studio the last weekend of it’s existence.
A few years ago, I had a schedule posted around my house in at least 2 or 3 places. It mapped out how I could be a single mom, work full time and still put in 20 hours in my studio. I stuck to that schedule fairly well as it had a bunch of free time blocked off also.
I had a friend at the time that gave me serious grief about planning my life too much. I disagree as it was during this time I was able to make some serious progress on my art career. I took down the schedule about 6 months before I got into the "sell my house, buy a house, build a house" year and it was at that time art making came to a fairly significant slow down.
Sure, a lot was going on in my life, but I also fell out of the habit of going to the studio. I started taking the attitude that I could be more relaxed about it and I’d still make a lot of art. Hm, well that didn’t work out so well. This included the time when my kids were in Europe for 3 months, I barely put in any studio time as it was not a routine anymore.
So first thing I’m doing as soon as my house is done, I’m making another schedule. Set times to be in my studio making art. In this way I should be able to get back to 20 hours a week fairly easily. I’ll also block in some time for the business side of art and plenty of free time.
Can’t work the day job any random time I want, and if I stopped showing up 8 hours a day they might not like it so much. I need to treat the art career with just as much respect.
This is the last of the 4 recent hand stitched textile paintings I’ve made. I’m currently working on Squares #5, which is similar colors as #4 but I’m doing a running stitch instead of a seed stitch. After I wrap up the work for the show I’m making I’ll jump right into some more hand stitching. I’m wondering if I could do some hand stitched ACEOs. Who knows, guess I’ll find out.
Now back to the studio for 1 more hour and then to bed at 9:30.
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