In My Studio – Ana Pina

Hello, I’m Ana and even though I used to work as an architect, I’m now deeply in love with contemporary jewelry and illustration. I live in Porto and am lucky enough to have at home my own private creative universe… I present you my studio: welcome!

You can’t get lost around here… my studio is not very big, only around 9m2, but it has everything I need to create. It has a narrow but tall window from where plenty of natural light comes in, big white tables waiting to be filled with new ideas and plenty of storage space, that I can’t seem to find enough.

I already realized that I’m some kind of organization freak, because my studio has this tidy and clean look most of the time. Yeap, I like boxes and drawers to keep the mess hidden… and as much as I can make a big mess while working, I can’t help tidying up at the end of the day!

Here you have an overview of the space. After several failed attempts, I came to the conclusion that this is the best way to take advantage of the space. Since I create in two very distinctive areas I must have different corners, with different requirements, to create: the right wall is mainly dedicated to my jewelry working space and tools, while the left one is occupied with my big white tables, where I draw (at least when I don’t decide to spread everything around the floor and draw right there!), print, assemble my illustrated products and get orders ready to go.

I spend too much time in the computer! Mostly reading my emails and writing in my blog, but also processing photos, printing works and, well… getting lost around facebook, pinterest and many of my favorite blogs! While I’m working, the music is always on – and I can’t thank enough grooveshark for that!

On the opposite wall, right by the window, my jewelry bench is surrounded by lots of tools and machines. Those who create jewelry will easily recognize some of the most important tools of metalsmithing, the others can try to have a clue about the utility of all this paraphernalia! After hours of patience and hard work, shiny jewels in brass or silver are born form this table.

My inspiration wall started as a humble magnetic board for errands, but quickly evolved to some kind of patchwork made of postcards, photos, artworks and happy memories that seems to have a life of its own! It’s always growing and changing and hopefully won’t reach the ceiling as long as I can help it.

A nice horizontal mirror helps me to quickly try some jewelry when I need to and always prevents me from opening the front door with my face filled with ink stains or so – very useful indeed!

As you can see, today I’m finishing some brooches of my wearables collection, which will soon be in the shop.

These long shelves serve both as an extra storage space and a showcase of some apparently unnecessary things which only function is to keep me smiling and inspired: my plants, some vintage and natural treasuries and my funny cat collection. Well, I believe that if you've be perceptive enough, you can see that I have cats all around me… you just can’t see my stubborn Frida too because she’s over too shy with visitors and always prefers to ignore you and catch some sun by the window.

I hope you enjoyed the visit, it was a pleasure to have you here!

Text and photos by Ana Pina.