Our next featured artist is Chris Oatey. We visited his beautiful brick home on a street lined with lush trees. He met us outside, informing us that we were some of the first people to see his new studio space in his basement. His studio highlights his artwork well: the white walls and wooden floors complement the primarily monochromatic works perfectly. We sat down, La Croix drinks in hand, and talked about his history as a map maker, his obsession with carbon paper, and how he captures fleeting, intangible moments.

For our next studio visit, we ventured to an area on the outskirts of the city, a place with aged warehouse buildings and a picturesque old saloon. The incredibly accomplished Clark Richert met us with coffee and cream in his hands and greeted us at his studio door with a deep, billowy voice. Richert is a great storyteller. We rummaged through old photographs and notebooks filled with drawings, while listening to many of his stories of years past.

Shill’s kindness and authenticity are captivating. She is brilliant without being pretentious, and she thoughtfully reflects on unfulfilled desire and loneliness in an age that is bombarded with media and perhaps its pseudo-interconnectedness.

Mattai has a humble, honest, and entirely captivating way about her, as she discusses her life and work. She is reflective and wonderfully articulate. We got to chat with her in the middle of one of the galleries, amidst an abundance of visually and emotionally powerful artwork. She seemed to blend right in, wearing a charming, ruffled yellow dress.

Since the art lives in your home, we want to connect you to the artists and the spaces the work was created in. To help do that, we are kicking off an artist blog series that gives you an “in the studio” look into the Octopus Initiative artists, their work, and their lives. We begin with Sierra Montoya Barela, one of the very first artists involved in the project.