Building a room of one's own

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf famously wrote, "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

The essay is about making literal and figurative space for women in the world of writing, and it was published at a time when the field was dominated by men.

Mesa College art students Kim Garcia and Kevin Kao have a similar premise for their current installation, "Space For 2 Artists." The "permanently temporary artist residency project" looks like a small shed on the outside, but on the inside, it's being used to provide emerging artists with much-needed space for making art.

It's tough for young artists—especially art students—to carve out a room for art, so Kao and Garcia went ahead and did it for themselves. They also opened up the room to a local author and let him use it to work on finishing his book.

Kao took some time to answer a few of CityBeat's questions about the project:

Kinsee Morlan:  Give me an overview of the project. How long will it be up?  What's the objective?  Who are the artists doing residencies?

Kevin Kao: Space For 2 Artists is a temporary artist residency building created by me and Kim Garcia both as a response to the idea of San Diego having artist residencies (such as Space 4 Art) and a burning desire to have our own studio space. We figured, what would be the best way to go about creating a space that we can call our own, while catering to our needs as students and artists? The space will be up from Nov. 29 through Dec. 15 on Mesa College Campus, 7250 Mesa College Drive , Between B & D buildings.

We built this space just for the two of us, however, realized that the project could extend beyond to include many more artists. Besides us using the space, we've had writer Jim Ruland come into residency where he worked on finishing his novel.

KM: What's your background?  Who worked on this project with you?

KK: My background is in Biology at UCSD, but I'm currently applying for grad schools in sculpture/ceramics. Kim Garcia was my collaborating partner in crime for this project. She is currently applying for undergraduate work in fine arts.

KK: Space is important because it allows artists to work, create and most importantly define as their own. There's definitely a sense of ownership, very much so similar to owning a house or a baby (That's a terrible analogy. Ha.)KK: I hope that people will get a sense that space, regardless of size, is important to both artists and students in general. There are also themes of limitations, necessity, function and, overall, creating the best from somewhat limited resources. It is completely possible to live, work and function as an artist in a 4x8x10 space.