Before the First Brushstroke

I have always believed a painting remembers the room it was made in. The light across the table, the chair that creaks, the cup going cold beside the brushes. So before the next collection, I asked my team at Petrov House Engineering Office to draw my studio with me. Every wall, every arched window, the exact spot where my ring and earrings wait while I work. This is the story of those plans, and of the quiet room they became.

The first thought

It began with a simple need. I wanted one place that stays the same. A painting asks for a room you can return to, day after day, where the light falls the way it fell yesterday.

My first painting had already shown me what I needed: a long wooden table, a small easel standing on it, my brushes and paints within reach, and warm light. Everything else was drawn around those four things.

Ideas across the table

The first version was an office space in the middle of town. Then the plans went down. Well, half a floor down. My studio is a semi-basement in a historic stone building in the city centre, and the street runs about two metres above my floor. A door opens onto a stone stairwell, and about twelve steps take me up to the street.

From there, the Engineering Office and I sent ideas back and forth. I described how the room should feel, they answered with a drawing, and I looked at it for a long time and usually asked for one more change. A plastered ceiling with thick dark beams. One wall of old brick. A dark plank floor. A deep white sink with a brass tap, where my brushes get washed.

Many sketches

I would love to tell you we got it right the first time. We didn't. The drawings are on their fourth revision now, and the room changed a lot on the way.

For a while there was one long, low window up near the ceiling, a single piece of glass with no frames at all. Then I changed my mind. Today there are three tall arched windows in dark frames, set high in the brick wall.

The ceiling went up twice. First it was higher than an ordinary room. Then higher again, to about four and a half metres, so the windows could sit above my head, where I wanted them.

The fridge used to hide behind a wooden cabinet door. Now it stands in the open, clad in copper, beside the sink. I like it there. It catches the warm light.

Testing the room

Before the room was finished, we tested it. First as a plain model, with every piece of furniture counted into its place, all 31 of them. Then again, with the light falling in.

Some tests failed, and those taught me the most. In one, a thin line crept along the bottom of the glass and looked like a window frame I never wanted. In another, a test view gave me a fourth window by mistake. I only have three. Each time we went back to the drawings and tried again, until the room in the pictures matched the room on paper.

Why these materials

I wanted the room to feel very old, rustic and refined. Every material followed from that wish.

The brick. One wall is old rustic red brick, uneven in colour, with worn joints and a little old lime left here and there. It has lived a long life before me, and somehow that calms me.

The dark walls. Every other wall is dark charcoal lime plaster, rough and hand-troweled. Dark walls keep a room quiet. The daylight lands on the table and the paper, and the corners stay soft.

The beams. Under a light plaster ceiling run seven thick dark wooden beams. They make a tall room feel held.

The arched windows. Three tall arches in dark metal frames, high in the brick wall. From my chair I see only the street and bare trees. The dark frames draw a clean line around the daylight, and the arches make even an ordinary afternoon feel a little old-fashioned.

The floor. Dark, aged, wide planks, and a worn terracotta rug under the table.

Small rituals

I come down the stairs, hang my coat on the hook rail by the door and change into my work clothes. Then my ring and earrings go into the little brass bowl on the table. Every time. I tie my hair back, and maybe I put the moka pot on first. When the work is done, the ring and earrings go back on, and that is how I know the day is over.

And the sounds. A brush on canvas, paper rustling, the moka pot bubbling, footsteps passing outside the window. The street is right there, and inside it is quiet.

This is where my paintings will be made from now on. In the next entries I will open the drawings properly and show you the small things on my table.

Liv