Studio Spotlight with Guest Artist Anca Bonner

Over the course of ten Wednesday's join me in welcoming 10 guest artists as they share a glimpse into the spaces that foster their creative process. One of our ten guest bloggers referred to the artist's studio as "Sacred Space", and indeed it is just that for me. Working in the silence of my own studio is the place I am most easily able to connect to my Creator. As our guest artists share images of their own sacred spaces, they tell a bit of their creative process through the answers to four simple questions. Read about the artist in their bio and then explore the links each one will provide to get to know them a little more.

I First encountered Anca's beautiful collages as a seller on Etsy working under the name "Anca Gray". I was immediately captivated by her choice of materials and color pallet and how she communicated her subject so powerfully within her compositions. We have followed each other's blogs and communicated off and on over the years over our mutual love for the art of collage, and I was thrilled to find that she was also a featured artist in Seth Apter's second book. To say I am in love with her studio as much as her art would be an understatement. Have a look...

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Anca Gray Studio

Anca Gray Studio

What is your favorite time of day to create and why?

whenever i get more than half an hour of uninterrupted time to work. i have a 7 month old daughter and am still adjusting to life and work with a baby.

Anca Gray Studio

What do you love most about your studio?

i work from my home studio and love that. it allows me to raise my child and do what i love for a living as well, not to mention the perk of having a fresh pot of tea all day every day. but aside from the location, i love that it's a wide open space that i can reconfigure however i see fit at the moment, that it's got plenty of natural light, and that unless it's winter, it's wide open to the natural world.

Anca Gray Studio

What can always be found in your work space?

there is always hot tea, stacks of yellowed book pages, an old dictionary because words inspire me, and a healthy dose of uncertainty

Anca Gray Studio

What dream supply would you purchase if money were no issue? - or alternatively – What medium would you want to learn if time were no issue?

the media that i love to work with is not a matter of cost. the best things of all are little bits of forgotten history, discarded relics, the odd bits that fell off somebody else's project and were mindlessly considered useless. to these i love to offer a new life within my collages and paintings. technique is another story. mine is quite the improvised sloppy method. eventually i would love to learn encaustic. i feel that it would add some welcomed dimension to my work.

Anca Gray Studio

Anca Gray Studio

bio

i am a romanian born artist living and working in chicago.  i have background in architecture and a passion for gathering community around the table. 

my work explores the life and history contained in discarded vintage books, antique lace and doilies, kitchen scraps and other assorted bits of found objects.  as i work these collected fragments into abstract and figurative paintings, i allow their stories to work on my own biases of brokenness and wholeness, of being and becoming.  my mixed media work is a relentless search for poetry in the debris, an affirmation of life and possibility.  

the work unpacks an interested in emotion, capturing and savoring unique moments in time and space, the simultaneous absence and presence of all colors, embedded memory of objects, texture, and a raw & feminine aesthetic.

shop: etsy.com/ancagray

blog: ancagray.blogspot.com

facebook: facebook.com/ancagrayart