Welcome to Echo Base, my art studio, maker space, and secret hideout overlooking Lake Michigan. It’s where I go to slow down, be quiet, and listen to God. It serves many purposes – it’s my favorite place to sketch, brainstorm, write, paint, and design cool things – but it’s basically my creative base of operations where I receive light and reflect it into a dark world.
Every artist has a dream studio.
It might be an expansive loft with high ceilings in the warehouse district, a cozy enclave of dedicated space in a spare bedroom, or for plein air painters, a sun-drenched vista in Tuscany.
Most make do with what they have – the edge of a kitchen table, a spare closet stuffed with a small desk, or the corner of a bedroom – until they can level up to a place that started in the imagination as the ultimate place for art making.
I’ve been drawing my whole life, but it got serious when I bought my first drawing table in high school. I don’t remember how much it cost, but it felt like it was the down payment on a house, the biggest investment I’d ever made in myself. I set it up in the corner of my bedroom, next to a poster of Michael Jordan, and it was settled: I was officially an artist.
That art table followed me to college, stuffed in the corner of my dorm room, and then on to Madison when Kim and I got married, where it found a home in the second bedroom of our apartment.
For as long as I can remember, my dream studio has been a light-filled escape with a lake view. I imagined banks of windows to welcome the sun, with lots of open space to sketch, paint and design cool things, with a vibe that was all my own.
It took twenty-five years for the dream to materialize, and during that time, I waffled between doubling down on my vision and trying to convince myself that it was a stupid one, or at least outdated and irrelevant; a relic of a foolish young man who dreamed dreams too big for him.
And then finally, in the midst of a global pandemic, the dream house materialized in remarkable fashion. (I tell that story here.) Perched on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, the home we found was perfect in almost every way. Except for the studio, because weirdly, most people don’t build expansive light-filled artist studios into the floor plan.
But it did have an office with room to expand. It looked more like the home base of an accountant than an artist – hunter green carpet, big wooden desk, the only thing missing was the accompanying green visor – but to me that just made the ultimate transformation more radical and the story better.
My Dad helped me draw up some plans to get the ball rolling. Between finding a contractor, completing a land survey, getting permits, ordering the materials, and actually building the darn thing, the process took well over a year.
It was worth the wait.
Take a tour…
After three decades of using the original drafting table I bought in high school, Kim convinced me it was time for an upgrade. I was happy to pass the old one down to my youngest daughter, who is named after my paternal grandmother Virginia, the person my art talent descended from. I love the look of this one and it’s where I do drawings, watercolors, and smaller oil paintings.
I have all the colored pencils Prismacolor makes, and had always stored them in trays stacked in a tin. Every time I needed a certain color, I could expect to find it in the bottommost tray, necessitating the removal of every other tray in order to get to it. Fed up, I found this little gem on Etsy that is functional and adds a fun splash of color to my workspace. The fact that it was made by an artist in Poland – the home country of my Dad’s side of the family – makes it extra special.
This is where I do the bulk of my painting. Sometimes I sit, sometimes I stand, and sometimes I dance around a little bit if I’m in the zone and the mood and music strike me. Second only to buying my first art table in high school, this is the purchase that made me feel most like a real artist. Its arrival coincided with my dive into oil painting.
This is Stanley, my yellow tool chest on wheels that serves as my manly taboret, aka a cabinet with drawers that holds my work palette, paint, brushes, solvents, and a coffee cup that I try not to dip brushes in. I almost bought the gray version, which obviously would have been a colossally bad life choice. The yellow makes my heart sing.
Adorned with pins and patches that represent my passions and personality, my apron does its best to shield my clothes from errant paint. Alas, although I’m not a particularly messy artist, it’s uncanny how paint finds a way.
I love being in nature, so panoramic views and floods of light have always been an important requirement for my studio. It has four skylights and more windows than wall space, which is fine by me, because nothing I could frame would ever match the ever-changing masterpiece that evolves outside.
I may or may not have a slight addiction to collecting Funko Pops. They represent my heroes, nostalgic childhood memories, and characters I love and relate to. In many ways, they tell the story of my life through a pop culture lens.
I’m really proud of these tables because I built them myself despite my relative lack of handiness. I stained and varnished the butcher block tops, attaching one to an IKEA shelf and the other to a series of 2x4s I cut, painted and screwed to a scrap piece of particle board left behind from the previous owner of our house.
The flat shelves are a series of IKEA tabletops and furniture legs I cobbled together that suit my storage needs perfectly. I secured heavy-duty wheels to the bottom, making them portable for added flexibility.
When pushed together, it gives me a large 5×5-foot workspace, as well as a landing place for my kids to work on their own projects. Nothing is better than when we’re all in there together, working away on something creative with the music playing.
This is my digital workstation, where I do sexy things like designing t-shirts and book layouts, and less sexy things like checking email and managing the accounting side of the business. My Macbook Pro keeps me flexible whilst the extended monitor gives me a lot of real estate that makes me way more efficient when I’m working here. My aspiration is a minimalistic workspace free from clutter and piles. Still working on that.
This is a QWERKYWRITER, a typewriter inspired mechanical keyboard that connects wirelessly to my Mac and iPad. I love the clickety-clack of the keys and the way it makes me feel like a serious, old timey writer.
My friend Jenna turned me on to Ruggable, which sells cool washable rugs. I loved this Star Wars one for its sharp but subtle design featuring various spaceships from the saga. My studio is nicknamed “Echo Base,” a Star Wars reference, and this was a great way to enhance that theme in a unique way.
The built-in bookshelves are a godsend, providing ample space for my art and business books, along with a sampling of toys, mementos, and – would you look at that – more Funko Pops!
Channeling my inner Willy Wonka led me to the conviction that my studio would not be complete without this vintage gumball machine. It can be configured to require quarters or dispense the gumballs for free. I chose the former because there is something satisfying about transforming a silver coin into a colorful ball of sugary joy. And because I’m not a complete Scrooge, I keep a bowl of quarters on hand for the kids (and kids at heart) who visit.
One thing I liked about the basement studio in our house in Madison was that it had a ledge along one wall that was perfect for storing canvases that were drying or waiting for a new home. I stained and varnished a leftover piece of oak trim and bought some industrial brackets and – voila! – a functional area that is a great way to display work for visitors while keeping art off the floor.
I did this painting in April 2020, one month into the pandemic, as a reminder that light can be found even in the midst of dark times. Amazingly, it looked exactly like the backyard of the dream house we’d buy seven months later. When a hundred-plus mile-per-hour straight-line wind ripped out 150 trees in the summer of 2022, that idyllic wooded backyard was no more. This canvas print now hangs near the peak of my new studio, overlooking what once was, while serving as a beacon with an even richer meaning.
I outfitted my studio with lots of new furniture, but this chair was not one of them. I rocked all three of my kids in it, and when they got too big for that, it became my prayer chair. I spend at least an hour there every morning, and it’s one of my go-to places to write, sketch, and think. My morning routine keeps me grounded, focused, and helped me survive and thrive amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Every morning is a show, and it’s always different than the day before.
One of the hardest things to leave behind in our Madison house was the custom stained glass window I collaborated on with an artisan named Rick Findora. The story that inspired that project is worth reading. We worked with him to create a smaller hanging version to serve as a reminder of God’s providence and protection.
This little gem was made by my Dad when I was very young. Almost every room in our house contains something he made, every one of them a treasure.
Early on in our marriage, my parents took us to see the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage Missouri. My mom was a big collector and had curio cabinets filled with the porcelain figurines. Somehow, my Dad arranged for us to meet Sam Butcher, who gave us a tour of his private studio. I’ve always been a big fan of how he used his talents as an artist to inspire people and make the world better. I only have two Precious Moments figurines, but they are both very meaningful. “Onward Christian Soldier” encourages me in my fight against the darkness as we work to bring light into the world. “Waiting On The Lord” kept me going for many years, especially when it felt like the dream home and studio would never become reality.
Funko Pop versions of Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Javier Baez are flanked by a W flag and some ivy in tribute to the Cubs World Series championship in 2016. It was the fifth-best day of my life (narrowly being edged out by my wedding day and the births of my three kids.)
This picture of me and Kim from when we were dating reminds me of how far our faith has taken us and how much it has grown over the years. I wrote more about this photo here.
