Artist Name: Marisa Haedike
Shop Name and Url: Creative Thursday www.creativethursday.etsy.com
Website: www.creativethursday.com
Blog: www.creativethursday.com/blog
City: Los Angeles

Where in your home/apartment is your studio located?
In a sun room at the back of the house, looking out into the back yard and garden

What equipment/tools do you use?
I use acrylic paints, with details of black conte crayon, on my favorite surface, wood, in particular the natural maple, ready to hang panels made by a wonderful company called art-boards. Sometimes, my former life as an interior designer inspires me to include beautiful papers and fabrics in with the paint to create a mixed media painting. I've also been hand sculpting the little characters who live in my paintings, using polymer clay. It's a nice change sometimes to switch from 2-D to 3-D creations.



Do you have an inspiration board, and can you tell us what is inspiring you now?
I do have one ~ two actually! One that is my vision board filled with visions, of course, of where I am, where I'm going, my dreams still unfolding. And then I have this new board that I'm presently refining that you can see in this corner of my studio with the colored index card squares. You see I've been on this complete organizing kick since January 2008...that is just now, in early April, beginning to wrap up (it was a serious attempt at re-organization of my life basically, including everything from files to photos to music and more) The board that you see was an idea from my boyfriend Sean as a way to visually "see" my week ahead ~ makes sense for an artist doesn't it? to "see" their schedule? ~ and the little squares that represent each project, appointment or activity can easily be rotated from day to day. The look of it is still evolving, and I'm not sure if it will be better as a magnetic board or a pin board that it is presently. All I know is that it also has to be pretty and have room for me to hang the latest magazine clippings, cards and images that I always save and scatter all around my studio from my desk to my windowsill.
I can never really narrow down what's inspiring me from day to day, as it's so much. I would say the use color of in any form is always an inspiration, nature, interiors, and animals because I love painting them.

How do you create best (e.g. do you listen to music while you create and if so what?)
Mostly I'm happiest creating in silence with the sound of the birds singing. Living in a big city like Los Angeles, one begins to crave more stillness. Otherwise I listen to music that is shuffled through my Itunes, and one of my favorite things to do while I paint is listen to podcasts and online radio programs ~ especially those with thoughtful and uplifting content and of course This American Life! For some reason when I paint, I can hear audio programs so clearly. I'm guessing that the particular creative focus I use while painting helps me to hear things differently, maybe it's a right brain vs left brain shift?



List (3) of your favorite artists
Cathy Nichols
Emily Martin
Ashley Anna Brown
and as so many people have already said, the list is endless.... I can hardly narrow it down.

If yours isn't, what would be your perfect studio?
I just moved this past October and I have to say I absolutely adore this studio space. It's so cozy, with its painted wood panel slanted ceiling and the room is filled with gorgeous light. It's the best, actually the first true studio I've had! Before I was always carving out spaces in our living areas....as I tend to work in more than one location. I have to admit that I still spill over into the dining room from time to time...The only additional changes I could ask for is to have a door that I could close from the rest of the house to leave it messy sometimes and also have better focused quiet creative time ~ and maybe a little bit larger in size so I could have a huge long table to spread all the creativeness out on one surface.

Thank you Marisa!