Name: Alyssa Monks, artist
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Size: 1,000 square feet
Years in business: Since 2000
What good comes out of perusing the internet for hours late at night? Finding the work and workspace of Alyssa Monks on The Jealous Curator. Seeing Alyssa's funky artist loft space and knowing this is how she spends her days really makes you want to give up your day job.
Alyssa's oil paintings become the decor and interest in her raw workspace. The rest of the furnishings are just basic necessities. The white walls and floors allow for a blank canvas, showcasing Alyssa's endless imagination.
Apartment Therapy Survey:
My Style: My painting style is figurative representational.
Inspiration: The inspiration for my workspace is mainly function. It needs to be large to accommodate large paintings, and lots of them. It needs to be organized, but paint stained, comfortable, relaxed, ventilated, and private.
Favorite Element: The size. I can breathe in here. I don't feel limited or crowded.
Biggest Challenge: The wall easels. It took a while to figure out how to hang the paintingsso I could easily move them up and down depending on where I was painting.
What Friends Say: People say it is great, big, comfortable.
Biggest Embarrassment: The cats leave a lot of hair around.
Proudest DIY: The wall easels. It was not my idea and my assistant helped, but we got it done.
Biggest Indulgence: The painting rack. It cost a lot of money, but it was well worth it to store paintings and keep the place more organized.
Best Advice: Get organized. Know where things are. Keep them in their place. It saves a lot of time and stress and allows for the creative process to flow easily.
Dream Sources: Home Depot, hardware stores
Resources of Note:
FURNITURE
Most of the furniture is found or donated or hand-me-downs. I love finding tables or shelves on the streets and painting them. I did have one tabouret custom made according to my design; I needed something I could use for painting standing up.
Other than that I made a few tables, found most of them, or was given things. I have an old pull-out couch a friend gave me years ago. It has been very useful! My oldest easel is one my parents got from Pearl Paint when I was 17 for Christmas. It is still the best easel I have and I use it often.
LIGHTING
I use floor lamps from B&H Photo in New York City. They are not expensive, only about $40 each. I have about 12 of them. Someday I'd really love to have track lighting though — that would be ideal for the paintings and for safety as well.
PAINT
The walls are painted with whatever white paint I found at the hardware store. Nothing fancy. Floors were painted with oil based floor paint, also white.
FLOORING
See above. They are concrete floors painted white.
RUGS & CARPETS
I have one old big floor rug I bought at Home Depot years ago for my apartment. Now it's here.
WINDOW TREATMENTS
I did custom order the blinds to fit the windows. I think it was Blinds To Go.
ARTWORK
I have pictures of a lot of paintings I like on a bulletin board in my studio for inspiration.
Thanks, Alyssa!
(Images: Stephen Churchill Downes and Alyssa Monks)
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AWESOME!
Oh my gosh, this is the life I wish I was living.
wow...
I just saw some pictures of a few of your paintings the other day but I can't remember where-- it's driving me crazy! Were they on AT for some reason? Hmm.
What an incredible space to be able to live and create. Blown away!
You can tell it solely a work space and I don't mean that in a bad way. You can tell what her priorities are and it's all about her work. Bravo for being able to get such a large space to do what you love.
That's an awesome space! I love Alyssa's work.
Alyssa, your paintings are amazing, your apartment is cool and you are a knockout.
Great workspace with a nicely functional layout. With that said, I'm pretty sure being surrounded by paintings that appear to be people drowning would make me have nightmares.
Love her paintings!
Those lamps are great looking. Website lists 2 for $88. Dumb question, could you use a smaller watt bulb for home lighting?
Great studio. Visited your website as well. Your paintings are fabulous--you exercise superb technical skill.
I wouldn't call this lovely space funky, it is all beautifully organised and uncluttered, easy to see serious work goes on here. Love it.
Talented AND beautiful. Not fair.
Damn, girl! Amazing.
Great space and very inspiring. My Mom, Sister and I are soon opening a vintage furnishings shop in a space where room will be at a premium. It kinda looks like this place Now...but will soon be filled to the brim. I'm liking the idea of mounting some sort of mechanism to the walls that can lift then display chairs, sofas, dressers, credenzas and the like. Maybe a stop at a used industrial equipment vendor is in order.
Fabulous paintings. This is the cleanest and most sparse painting studio I have ever seen. It would drive me nuts. My creativity flourishes in clutter.
i'd love a space like this, especially in New York!
I know Id never be able to afford one,but I LOVE her work.
Not seeing anything regarding proper ventilation. A lot of oil painting artists die young because of that kind of exposure.
Terrific - want a house guest? How do the wall easels work? Are they like oversize shelf/peg arrangements? Custom made? Pegs are wood/metal or ?
Think it's a great place - congrats.
After deciding that my goal as an artist is NOT to replace my NGO landlord's loss of donations, I moved to a cheaper, and alas much smaller studio. just when my canvases started getting much larger. Ouch. From 65 to 41 sq meters, and alas, with oversized bathroom and kitchenette. (From about 650 sq feet, to 410)
I hope that you sell lots, so much that even when you paint up a storm of good works, that the storage rack stays half empty.
I respect your cleanliness and order. I only seem to be able to clean up after myself when cooking. (Fear of my wife at home, and of roaches I the studio)
I have admired Alyssa Monk's work for a long time and find it very interesting to see how clean, organized and although a beautiful space, kind of unexciting her studio is. If you are interested in the relationship between the art one creates and the space those pieces come to be, you should check out this link. Lucian Freud, one of my favourite painters of all time recently died and although this little video saddens me it is exactly what I would have imagined his studio space to be! I'm not comparing, just noting the difference in work/space.
Thanks Alyssa, I love your work!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4YMV4EyaPMM
Great space and incredible artwork!
What a tranquil, thoughtfully curated space. In a work/life space like this it is so important to have balance and I think you've really achieved it. I can practically see your long work days followed seamlessly by evenings of wine and music with friends or clients.
those lights tend to run really hot to the touch, if i am correct.. Probably a killer for electricity bills too. Cute, but meant for photography, not prolonged use.
Thanks for all the encouragement and thanks to Marcia and Apartment Therapy! A few responses: I loved the Lucian Freud video, thanks for posting. The bulbs do get hot, but electric bill is not so bad. I have an entire wall of windows for ventilation, including a ventilation fan...but I don't use very toxic solvents anymore. The wall easels are composed of strips of wood - 1x3's are ok, but 2x4's are better - drilled into the wall at the studs evenly. We drilled one inch holes about 12 inches apart down each one, all level. I had pegs made to fit the holes. The nice thing is you can easily move the pegs and the paintings without having to unscrew anything. on the end of each peg, a student of mine suggested door stoppers to keep the paintings from slipping. Mark Paske (mail@markpasek.net) is your guy for this idea and my painting racks. This is a workspace only. I did submit the prettiest shots of it, of course....but i do get pretty messy with paint in here. Thank you all for your comments and encouragement! Feel free to contact me with any questions alyssa@alyssamonks.com.
The space? Oh. I'm sorry. I was so busy looking at the artwork.
By the way, Apartment Therapy folks, I clicked on the "The Jealous Curator" link and I got a HUGE warning from my computer that it is an unsafe website.
doesn't live there? why?
love the paintings.. she is amazing. wish she could do one of me LOL :)
The ceiling height makes all the difference. Very nice.
I am so jealous I can hardly see straight. I wish this were my life! I adore your place, love how it is functional and white so the art can take center stage. I would be so inspired to paint there. Do you paint all hours of the night?
P.S. You are adorable.