It was the year 2000, and Alison needed a new project. Actually, she needed a SHOW. The deadline for her annual show at the Granary Gallery was approaching, and she hadn‘t had a good year creatively. She used to keep a tiny spiral notebook in her car, where she jotted ideas (now she uses the Notes app on her phone). One of those ideas was to shoot tools, objects, and other details in artists’ studios. She remembers spontaneously pulling her car over next to a pay phone at Alley‘s General Store, and calling Allen Whiting, a super-talented painter (and sheep farmer) in West Tisbury. He said to come on over, and her new project was born.
Easel & Brushes, Allen Whiting Studio 2000
Palette Knives, Tom Maley Studio 2000
Alison wanted to capture glimpses of artists‘ creative spaces through her own eyes, her own artistic vision. In the photos, these materials – brushes, easels, paint tubes, scribbles on a pad, old palettes with dried bits of paint – become art in their own right.
Palette, Allen Whiting Studio 2001
Brushes, Tracey Sandford Anderson Studio, Provincetown 2003
Alison has continued shooting for her Artists’ Studios series, but in the fall of 2002, she had a breakthrough that would become one of her most important creative evolutions to date. For the 2003 season, there would be yet another series…