With the new year upon us it’s a good time to make a fresh start don’t you think? Well I do and there are a number of changes that I’m making with my creative space that I thought I would share with you today.  I hope that these pictures will inspire you to create a special space of you own to let your creative self out to express. In my basement I have this wonderful long art table which is set up with art supplies hanging nearby.

The only issue is I have noticed is that I don’t use it as much as I would like to.  For one, it is in my basement and sometimes I just want to be in the hub of the house, where I feel more connected.  Part of the reason is that the lighting is not the greatest there, especially since I have been spoiled with the natural light I get in the “sun room” in the back of  my kitchen.  So here is what I have been doing.  I delegated the basement for family creating and decided to make myself some new space.

Time for a change.

I have been creating, but in a very transient way. When I first became an art therapist, I use to joke that I was the traveling art therapist because I worked in so many different places where I had to bring my art supplies to work with clients. Sometimes I worked with them in their homes, sometimes at a school or office space that was temporary and where I could not leave my supplies.   I began to carry my supplies around in tool boxes and began collecting different sized ones for different purposes: Art Therapy sessions, community workshops, experiential Art Therapy presentations.  Now at home I have quite a collection of tool boxes: one filled with puppet and mask making stuff, my painting and drawing supplies, water-colour paints, plus a giant one on wheels (someone was throwing out) that I use for workshops.

For the past few months I have been creating off and on in my kitchen space, lugging up tool boxes of art supplies and then putting them back downstairs.  Never really having easy access to creating, always having to put things away or aside if I am working on something.  But that is the price I pay for a space that allows me to create. I have adapted to my environment in a number of ways: Sometimes I use a plexi glass sheet to work on my art on top of the white table in my kitchen, or sometimes a sheet of wood, sturdy enough to move my projects without having to disrupt them.  I have also begun to store my supplies in pretty baskets which I can leave out without looking cluttered.

When I am feeling like being particularly messy I take out a plastic shower curtain which I have repurposed as a table top drop sheet for creating.

I have created little pockets for creating in throughout the house. On the second floor, by a glass back door with  a lot of natural light, I have put a small wooden secretary desk which a neighbour was throwing out. My plan is to repair it (hinge is broken) so that I can make an art journaling nook there.

In the mean time I stash tool boxes,shoe boxes and baskets of my art supplies ready for when the urge to create takes over.

So how about you?

Do you like having everything at your fingertips and organized?

Or are you fine working out of boxes or closets?

How can you claim creative space for yourself?

• Have you made space for your creative self?
• Is your space inviting, does it call to you to create?

You don’t need to purchase tool boxes if you don’t have them.  Shoe boxes or other boxes, painted or covered in collage will suffice.  For an easy way to transport your supplies to different spaces in your home, (such as the solitude of your room or a makeshift “art room” out in nature)  keep and use fruit baskets with handles, or other boxes that close and have handles such as this one from some mugs I won at a holiday party.