SCENES FROM THE STUDIO
The next time you have a few minutes for a little video watching, I recommend hopping on over to the website Scenes from the Studio, which has a number of great, bite-size videos of studio visits with artists in New York. It’s a new project from the artist Robin Cameron, who is known for sly, poetic work in a variety of mediums, and her brother Wilson Cameron, a filmmaker.
“We wondered—what does an artist do in a typical day in the studio?” Robin told me by e-mail. “The series is a way to understand the artist’s process, and look inside the studio.” The two have interviewed a wide range of artists, from excellent emerging figures like Martine Syms (whose video is embedded below) and Lukas Geronimas to some deeper into their careers, like Maggie Wells.
Each video clocks in at around three minutes, jumping between footage of the artist working and shots of his or her studio, accompanied by the voice of the artist. Robin picks the subjects and does the interviews, while Wilson handles the film work.
“We looked at a lot of different art documentaries and we knew that we didn’t want this to have a traditional talking-head approach,” Wilson said. “We wanted to treat the audio as if it were its own piece, by editing the interview into a monologue that would play with the visuals.”
The results are informative, charming, and often quite intimate. The viewer never hears the questions that Robin asks so one can almost feel alone there with the artist, listening on as, for instance, Wells answers what may have been a tough question. She says, “Art is a way to find yourself—to know who you are.”