Hyperallergic: A View From the Easel with Zeinab Shahidi Marnani

How long have you been working in this space?

Over a year.

Describe an average day in your studio.

Here in Provincetown, I’ve found it satisfying to start the day by walking toward the beach and visiting the ocean and the wide sky. The first part of the day goes quietly and easily for me. That’s when I let myself develop my perception, or freely experiment with the works in progress. I work on several projects simultaneously, looking at and rethinking them. I normally break my day into two halves. I start the second half in the evening. I enjoy breaking the dark and silence to make and build. I listen mostly to traditional Iranian music while working, which generally includes ancient poems by Hafez, Saadi, or other poets. Some layers of those poems are only revealed after listening to them many times. And sometimes, I find them in dialogue with my work.

How do you interact with the environment outside your studio?

As a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center artist residency, my studio is surrounded by nine studios of other artists, poets, and writers. We live and work together for seven months in this quiet time of the year in a town on the tip of Cape Cod, famous for being at “the end of the earth.” We meet in a lounge where we cook and eat together, watch movies and gather around a ping pong table. Some of us work together in the print shop. It is a flow between the solitude of studio practice, meeting with the community, and building individual friendships.

What do you love about your studio?

The stunning light, especially in the afternoon, and when it’s a difficult time of the day as the sun is setting, the view of the top of multiple trees from my window. I also love the fact that it’s been a place of creating art for many years.