Upper School Fine Arts teacher Juliette Mc­Cullough likes to work big.

McCullough already has a space in her new house where she will be able to create small­er work. However, she is adding a second at-home art studio in her garage, 22 by 22 feet, to fit her needs for larger art projects.

To her, an art studio is a must-have.

“I have never, in my life, not had one. I remember when I was living in student housing and I had one bedroom and one living room, but the bedroom became my studio and the liv­ing room became everything,” she said.

The first step was finding the right builder. She chose Doug Robison of Doug Robin­son Designs. He has turned stor­age spaces into studios before.

Remodeling homes and creating studios take different skills, Robinson, who does both, said. He is an Abstract Impres­sionist artist himself and treats studios as pieces of art.

“The difference in building out a studio versus remodeling a home is you generally have a blank canvas to work with, meaning only walls to build out from, where as a home has in­ternal structure to define areas,” he said.

McCullough began the pro­cess for planning her new stu­dio after moving into the house last summer and estimates it will be completed in the spring.

McCullough plans to be very hands-on with the build­ing of her studio. She will have Robinson do the basic construc­tion, but she will do the taping and bedding.

“When I paint my pictures, I stretch the canvas flat on the wall, and it sounds very strange to anybody else, but when I am plastering the wall, I’m feeling the space, and it actually helps me when I am using that wall and when I am making the paintings. It’s as if I get to know the surface very intimately,” Mc­Cullough said.

She hopes to work on the process over spring break.

Sophomore Kate Cooper, who has been a student of Mc­Cullough’s at Hockaday for two years, believes projects like these are essential to artist’s work.

“I think it is important for an artist to have a studio be­cause it gives them a way to ex­press their work,” Cooper said.

To view the pieces Mc­Cullough is currently showcas­ing and selling, visit www.ju­liettemccullough.com.

– Megan Philips