An Artist's Curiosity Shop: William Schaff's Studio

Yes, we love clean, organized spaces, but we also firmly believe that a little chaos is an essential part of the creative process. Nestled between the antique shops that line the waterfront in Warren, Rhode Island is the storefront studio where artist William Schaff lives and works amongst an organized chaos of inspiring collections.

Skulls and taxidermy may be popular these days, but anatomy and natural history have always been required study for artists. Schaff’s large collection of bones, toy soldiers, and ephemera find their way into his artwork either by literally becoming part of his dioramas and sculptures or by providing subject matter for his drawings, paintings, embroidery and papercuts. Like his collections, Schaff’s art is sometimes beautiful and sometimes gruesome, but that is definitely what we like about it.

A laser cut edition of the of one of his original papercuts (shown above) is available from Tiny Showcase (a fantastic source of affordable art based here in Rhode Island). Visit his flickr to see more of his work.

(Images: top: Sarah Rainwater, bottom: Tiny Showcase)