What’s in your make-up bag?
a Tom Ford Bronzing powder and “Lip Laquer”

Do you have a beauty secret?
Maroccan unroasted Argan oil for hair and skin 

How would your female friends describe your style ?
Casual and down to earth 

Most treasured item in your wardrobe ?
My striped beige and blue Navajo poncho once purchased in Santa Fe …

Anything in the wardrobe you should get rid of but you can’t?
A pair of battered cowboy boots dating back to my Wellesley College days …

What do you never leave home without ?
A smile ..

What do you wear on a hot date night?
Nothing !

What do you wear to bed?
Always a white T- shirt …

How old is too old for jeans?
Never too old!

What is your most recent purchase ?
A very fat lens – The Canon 85/ 1.2 ” dream lens”  as I like to call it !

Can you judge a book by its cover ?
Generally no BUT ……

What are your bad habits?
The ones I don’t like but keep repeating !

What’s your greatest extravagance?
Creative dawdling …

What are your guilty pleasures?
Being where I’m not meant to be, seeing what I’m not meant to see 

What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
“Know Thyself”!  

What’s your favorite smell?
Persian nights aired with Jasmin…

What’s your idea of a great holiday?
Not knowing where you’ re going to end up …

What are you most proud of?
My children and my life in reflection.

What are you least proud of?
Reflecting on regrets..

What is pure bliss in your mind?
Moments lost in Nature …

What would you eat for your last supper ?
SMALL portions of BIG ideas 

If you could meet someone from history …who would it be ?
Omar Khayam , 12 th century Persian polymath and lover of life 

Yes or no to a nip and a tuck?
why not !

Do you have a favorite purse or bag?
|A black vintage quilted Chanel flap from the 80s , a hand- me – down from my mother and a classic  forever!

Do you have a favorite KOTUR bag?
My large navy Morley Snakeskin Clutch- love the shape,  love the size !

On a scale of one-to-ten, how good looking are you?
Mirror mirror on the wall……

How would you like to be remembered ?
As one who cared  …as one who loved …

Larry Bell
We visited Larry Bell on several occasions both in California and in New Mexico. Larry is a legendary and leading exponent of the Californian ” Light and Space” movement, as well as an artist who still to this day signs off his emails with the words ‘Peace and Love!’ Larry’s creative ideas are often sparked during his marathon 15-hour car journeys driving from his Venice Beach workplace to his other studio in Taos. He’s been doing this route alone for many years, accompanied by his best mate, his dog Pinky. In Taos, I had fun experimenting with Larry’s magical Time Machine. The piece allows two people seated and facing each other (on either side of his coated mirror) to have their images transposed, as if melding together. I had a good laugh when I saw my “ blended “ image with that of Larry ‘s: he was sporting my red dress, and I was wearing his famous Trilby hat while chomping on his favorite Nicaraguan Cigar!

It was fascinating to watch the artist at work with his massive, self-engineered high vacuum thermal evaporator machine.  The circular chamber heats and vaporizes metal filaments onto Mylar or paper. The result: miraculous luminescent-coated surfaces collaged by the magic hand of the Creator into gorgeous “vapor drawings.”

Sterling Ruby
One aspect of our ” American journey” (original intended name for the book) which I for one will never forget is the sheer size of the American creative genius (matching its territory), grand in vision, grand in spirit and grand in scope. One such example of SIZE was experienced whilst we visited Sterling Ruby at his workplace in East LA – in Vernon, California, situated next to a disused railway track. At the time, he was preparing for a move into a newly acquired 92 000 square feet studio spread on 4 acres of land, previously an automotive workshop!

His then current space was not too shabby either… A former bubble wrap factory housing a cavernous complex web of outdoor and indoor workshops devoted to his works in collage, ceramics, spray paintings, poured urethane “stalagmite” structures and woodwork. The place was perfect for the sheer scale of all his monumental artworks, some of which deal with issues of urban demarcation and gang culture. Sporting his Indiana Jones-style hat and cowboy boots, Sterling explained that, “the greatest thing about LA is that I get to work outside pretty much every day of the year!”

Francesco Clemente
We caught Francesco on his return from India, visiting him at his recently built Greenpoint, Brooklyn studio that he’s occupied for the last five years. The spacious building is situated right next to the East River, where the artist often takes a stroll to clear his head and get a view across the river onto the city.

The top floor, his strictly private space for meditation, rest and contemplation, is filled with natural light streaming from skylights and generous windows. This “observation space” is adorned with a Jean Prouve hospital bed and Frank Gehry furniture. On the mezzanine, we encountered relics from his past lives: a miniature train set nestled next to a playing deck from one of Francesco’s favorite 1990s haunts, Jackie 60, the epitome of NY creative nightlife at the time. On the ground floor, his workspace: one wall covered with self-portraits and another housing a massive floor to ceiling art library. On the floor itself (where Francesco tends to paint on his knees,) his brushes and paint pots perfectly organized and meticulously laid out in physical order next to his current canvas.

Francesco’s other space is located in Noho, a studio he has had for over 30 years. In his own words, he has “more of his past parked there than any other space.” It is a true Aladdin’s cavern filled with paintings and photographs of friends and family: his beautiful wife Alba, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg among others, adorning the walls. Indian inspired paper cuttings are haphazardly spread across the large wooden beamed floors whilst a Buddhist altar serves as his meditation corner.  Most memorable of all, and quietly resting on a piano, which has no doubt seen more than its fair share of parties and fun gatherings over the years, is a large sculpted replica of an LSD molecule.

John Currin
We visited John Currin in his loft studio in the NY Flatiron district, a short walk from the Gramercy Park townhouse that he shares with his wife and muse, the statuesque and talented artist, Rachel Feinstein. Currin, who is 6 feet 3 inch tall and is known for his sardonic wit and suave manners, graciously met us whilst fighting off a bad case of flu.

Currin’s light filled workspace featured his easels set against scattered body parts of male and female mannequins. He prefers to prime his own canvases, allowing them to dry for a full year before use.  He has owned his palette knife since he was 25, whilst his hog-bristle brushes are bought in competition with his buddy Richard Philips.

His inspiration often emanates from vintage pinups in old magazines and old erotic books … piled up high on various surfaces, while a redheaded mannequin’s hair is often styled by the artist’s own professional hairstylist, often adorned with fabric flowers. The space, which also holds a number of Louis Style chaise lounges used by his sitters, taffeta remnants and silver wax dripped candle holders, blends elements of the new with the feel of an old world atelier, a sentiment which is faithfully reproduced in Currin’s intricate carnal female portraits.

Nancy Holt
First day in New Mexico and we made straight for Abiquiu, a pilgrimage to Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch, sacred art ground and the famous artist’s working space-come-studio.  But the area was fenced off, forbidden to intruders and unwelcome art-pilgrims, sold into the slavery of commerce where some banal pottery group was testing the limits of their creativity!

What to do? We had to in fact become trespassers, breakers of the local law, bound to be hung from the first yardarm or handy cacti for a death of a thousand cuts. After all, we’d come all the way from Fair England, and life is unfair, so sod it, we said! We said our prayers, paid our dues for our art sins, and even did a Native American ‘Sun Dance’ thrown in for good measure.

Thus fortified, we measured possible distances to be covered and made a dash for the Holy Ground… Except Georgia had not left us any plans or directions, and we couldn’t very well ask anybody, lest it turn out to be our last human encounter.  And, all I could think of, as we were walking down what seemed to be at the time a never ending dirt road, flanked by imposing rust colored rocks and mountains, was how incredibly brave and pioneering a woman O’Keeffe must have been to single handedly set up her ranch against this lonely, imposing natural backdrop with no one to call her neighbor for a hundred miles in either direction.

This set the tone for our visit the next day to Nancy Holt, another of American art’s true pioneering spirits from an age which seems so distant given today’s total preoccupation with glitz and glamour in the art world. We visited Nancy on her 22-acre ranch in Galisteo NM where she has lived for the last twenty years. Galisteo, a tiny 200-inhabitant village was used by Union soldiers during the Civil War as they were preparing for the battle of Glorietta Pass in 1862. The hamlet, also home to now deceased Agnes Martin, has been used in the last century as a bolt-hole for adventurous artists. The landscape seems pretty unchanged since the American Civil War, I’d wager!

A conceptual artist at heart, Nancy and her deceased husband Robert Smithson are both famous for their land art installations. The Adobe style house she occupies is situated in an area populated by bears, mountain lions, coyotes and the occasional rabbit. She describes her studio as a “sanctuary,” a place where she puts together her thoughts and where she plans her next installation. She spends a great deal of time walking in the expanse of her surrounding high desert landscape, especially in the Arroyo (dry canyon) which straddles her property, an exercise we too happily carried out with her – who needs glamour when nature provides!

Next day …we left for a humbling encounter with the imposing Rio Grande, the Gorge itself, 800 feet deep, and a place of natural wonder where the watercourse of the river follows a tectonic chasm. This was followed by a visit to German born Charlene von Heyl in the arid desert expanse centering the time-arrested town of Marfa in Texas, where James Dean filmed his Giant.  Donald Judd happens be the presiding Art God of this 1950s town, a second pilgrimage of sorts.

Art Studio America: Contemporary Artists in their Studios is published by Thames and Hudson and TransGlobe Publishing.

The book can be ordered with a 25 % discount directly from www.tgpublishingltd.com quoting code ASA01

Often it’s the story behind something that proves most intriguing, the little known secrets and spaces that help big ideas come to life that are truly fascinating, and a recent book we’ve come across gives a rare and privileged insight into just such environments. Art Studio America: Contemporary Artist Spaces is edited by an old friend, Maryam Eisler, and is quite simply one of the most interesting art books we’ve seen in quite some time. A sweeping journey – quite literally – across America’s artistic landscape, it takes a look at the working spaces and environments of 115 artists working in America today. What that provides is a lavish treat and a sneak peek inside the private studios of some of our best known contemporary artists, be they the huge factory style set up of Sterling Ruby, the flatiron loft of John Currin or Francesco Clemente’s Brooklyn meditation space, complete with Frank Gehry furniture. Like the artists themselves, each space speaks of a singular vision and way of working that is completely unique. What they have in common is that they are, quite simply, where the magic happens. Here, Maryam tells us of some of the most memorable experiences she encountered along her book’s journey.

Following their London and New York book launches, Maryam Eisler and Hossein Amirsadeghi traveled to Hong Kong’s Art Basel where we hosted a small gathering to celebrate their success. (Scroll above for some pictures)

By Fiona KOTUR