top of page

Lofty Aspirations

Updated: Jan 29, 2021


Every creative needs a room of their own.

Just ask Ms. Woolf. Mine just so happens to be in a barn. Not quite on-par with the Biltmore of of the 1920’s,

but for me a luxury none the less.


Most days my studio is a cluttered, wayward explosion of projects,

colliding amidst inspiring gimcracks and brick-a-brack.

Other days it’s still a cluster, just of slightly more orderly chaos.

Rows of leaning paintings and backdrops ( in a moment of fleeting clarity) rolled as neatly as hedgerows.

Glamour is absent in a working space.


When spatial problems arise and grand notions beg for attention what's a girl to do?

I head the call and I expand ... and I expand upwards. Up to the barn loft above my workspace.

A place I can scheme and set scenes for my "lofty aspirations".

It's a place where large-scale backdrops and larger-than-life,

antique-fueled, painted portraits can hang about.

Personalities and landscapes come to life.


Most days I’m dwam-struck. Creating worlds of grandeur and escapes.

A place to be among the beau monde.

Or at least content to be the wallflower.

While just outside patiently waits the reality of work and chores to do,

A barrage of non-creative projects to tackle.

Sounds of the occasional lowing of the cloven hoofed

and tittering of feathered egg-layers are there to remind me this is just play.

But inside these four walls I can hold as much story and verbiage as a hard bound book. Setting scenes, creating stories, tiny little escapes.

An adventure filled existence. Unconventional daydreams.

A strange assortment of ideas, from old time and from new.

In that sense I’m probably a bit more Eustacia than Thomasin.

I'm drawn to the classics and the romance of it all.

Gilded objects against a dark canvas .

Glitter among the grit.


So I keep scheming and setting scenes in my old barn.

Classic motif’s and a "new class" of Neoclassical Victorian.

Grander stories with Dickensian plots...from the past, made anew.

- Jennifer


Barn Loft Chandelier
Jennifer Lanne studio
Theatrical barn vignette
Jennifer Lanne barn loft stiod
Barn Loft

portrait pillow by Jennifer Lanne for Decorum
"Ophelia" portrait pillow



397 views1 comment