It was 2 a.m. when the skies of Paris opened over Claude Lantier. Dashing through the rain, the gifted but impatient painter arrived at his studio facing the river Seine to discover a young woman seeking shelter from the storm. After weathering the downpour inside—she on the bed, he on the couch—Claude awoke to find the woman asleep, covered in little else but sunlight. Inspired, the artist began to sketch his unconsenting model, quietly, attentively, until she woke herself and discovered him in the act.
The studio is where strange magic happens, as much for the artist’s imagination as for the public’s. It’s the conjuring place of new concepts, styles, or forms. Sometimes it even comes to be seen as sacred, a place where visitors become pilgrims to the altar of art. On the other hand, as the artist Joe Fig recently told me, it is also “a place where mundane tasks and very non-glamorous things go on.” A sculptor and painter, Fig has also authored two books of interviews, Inside the Painter’s Studio (2009) and Inside the Artist’s Studio (2015), that explore artists’ working habits and the places that nourish them. Both aim “to shed light on the real day-to-day process of the artist, the time, hard work, and persistence it takes to succeed,” as he explains.
