My studio in the Lower Bottoms of West Oakland was great, even more so because it stood only three blocks from my house. We found it when the previous tenant was moving out. I shared it with a group of fantastic artists including the founders of Sunnight Edition, Yoni Asega and Drew Grasso, who now help produce some of my prints.
I wasn’t a studio artist at first, and still operated from the workstation in my room. My studiomates, David Tim and Yoni really nudged me, and eventually I moved everything in. My area was upstairs, in the loft, and I shared it with Chris Burch, then Colton Callahan. I had the canvases sitting on paint cans and the walls, so I could work on them simultaneously. It was too hot in the day so I mainly painted at night, between 9pm and 3am. I miss the memories of that space and how much I learned from my brothers.
Text and photos by Lenworth “Joonbug” McIntosh, previously featured in our Winter 2022 quarterly
