Finally, after 2.5 years, I will have dedicated studio space in Vietnam. I had been largely working in video, performance, photography and small installations and didn't necessarily need another location for art production. Fabrication and modeling was often done at the factory or collaborating artist's studio. Meetings at coffeeshops for the type of work I was doing was appropriate. Curators and visiting artists could view my work on a laptop or browse through exhibition catalogs.

That is until I started painting. Painting in my small room is a serious liability. After four or five hours of painting, I would need to clean up everything before using my room for anything else. Large scale work is impossible and the flourescent lighting is a huge zero.

My friend Justin and I have found a location that we can both use for our projects. The industrial space is currently storing coffee roasting equipment. After remodeling and refurbishing, the ground level will be a new cafe lounge that Justin and Julie (of Sugar Street Cafe) will run. The 2nd floor (about 1/2 the area of the ground) will be my studio space.

The factory has extremely high ceilings (think: airplane hangar). For my studio space, we intend to install a spiral staircase to replace the ladder steps, laydown an a plywood floor to distribute the weight across the  beams, replace some of the corrugated steel roofing with transparent materials to let in natural light, and install a dedicated sink for washing brushes and cleaning materials. I will probably build a pully lift to transport materials to and from the studio to the ground. I may erect some drywall to display and photograph work.

I'll have some pics of the space once I begin converting the space upon my return from my exhibition in Phnom Penh. Possibly around late February.