Artist's Studio

The Artist's Studio, Wolfville, NS,  Joseph Hartman, Photograph Copyright Joseph Hartman

A little over a year ago, a photographer named Joseph Hartman http://josephhartman.ca/index.html called me and asked to photograph my studio as part of a book project he was working on documenting the studios of artists across our fair land. The objective was to make a record of how an artist's space really is, and not something doctored up for the likes of a home design publication for instance, with the artist in their Sunday best poised in front of a painting executing a final detail.

 In accordance with consistency, the artist must be missing in action as were all the other artists chronicled up to the point of Joseph's visit to my studio crypt, and as all the other artists would be until the exercise is completed. I'm not normally one that likes people in my creative digs (cat and family excluded), but after viewing an exhibit he did on the artist's studio, http://momus.ca/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-professional-joseph-hartmans-artist-studios/  I realised the uniqueness of his thought process. I recommend reading the Momus review on his work and the contemporary studio - it sheds much light on the nature of the artist - from the industrial studio workshop replete with a multitude of assistants like that of Kent Monkman, to the more humble and monastic space like that of Ron Shuebrook.   

  Joseph uses a 4 x 5-inch camera and film.He took about two hours or so before he completed his assignment and then moved on to the next town or city, to another veiled industrious space, and another artist in absentia.

Joseph Hartman's book on the artist's studio should be published and available this May.

Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS.
www.stevenrhudefineart.com