Helping an artist work longer: an Ergonomic Evaluation of his workspace.

Kevin Lee
Kevin Lee
Sep 4, 2018 · 6 min read

This is Dave:

Hi Dave!

Dave was a graduate student studying fine arts at the time of this evaluation. he did painting and explored working with a lot of different mediums such as sewing, collaging, etc.

I consulted Dave for an Ergonomic Evaluation as part of a project. I needed a client, and he needed some workspace modification

Below is a diagram of his workspace:

Dave’s set up. As you can tell, i’m quite the artist

Here is a look into his work space:

The bookshelf, stores stuff but doesn’t use too frequently
Used for Music and sewing mostly.
Different purposes for different tables main work table for Dave.

Postures:

After seeing the space, I needed to see how he worked within his space to output his artwork so I asked him to go through tasks he does in the studio and took some pictures of the postures he had.

He’s hunched forward! Uh oh!

When looking at Dave’s sitting posture, you notice that he is hunched forward, he has a forward head tilt away from a neutral spine and a forward flexion in his back. furthermore his arms are raised up pretty high which is strain in his shoulders. and his legs have a gap between his legs meaning he’s putting additional pressure on his legs.

Basically I’m saying he’s sitting poorly. this is not a posture that you want to maintain if you want to keep your spinal health and your overall health chugging alone!

Also, that chair is non adjustable and a very hard surface to be sitting on for more than a few minutes.

Reaching out far to pin walls

Dave is constantly stretching out across the tables, to pin his inspirations. while one time won’t kill him, he was hyper-extending on a regular basis.

Dave has a paintbox he uses to mix paints, he keeps in on the floor and bends over every time to mix paints and things. he paints quite a lot so this is a frequent issue.

X out that posture

All that bending over can really put strain on the lower back and legs. especially while working with paintings on the floor

Some of these paintings are taller than he is and he’s reaching over paint these forms

On top of the postural issues present, he had other issues associated with the age of the building he worked in

There was no heat or air conditioning to use in the building. Lighting was not controlled in the room could not be adjusted to the user’s preferences in the room. making it hard when working with some mediums. There was no way to carry his artwork in and out as there is not an elevator to carry things. Also, there was no sink in his station meaning he had to walk outside every time he needed to clean his hands.


Finding a solution:

I had a lot to work with, and a lot of ideas on how to change his space but first thing I could do was teach Dave some of the basics of proper seating posture: Which is to keep feet flat on the floor, shoulders relaxed but retracted back, and to stick the butt out when sitting down to maintain that arch in the back. I also educated him about being conscientious about the movements he makes can have a long lasting impact.

I had a few ideas of working the work space so I pitched them to Dave

Proposal 1
Proposal 2

I proposed opening up the work space to the right side to give room to post inspirations on that wall while using a work space in the center to keep tools and work projects around. Another thing was proposing a hand cart to carry cleaning supplies and his paints so that he wasn’t bending over every time to make it easier for him to work with and removing the bookshelf. He didn’t like those proposed changes and it didn’t work for him at the time.

So we talked it out more to see what we can change within the space without any large purchases to see what we an work with.

We just moved some tables at the time and I gave him a list of my recommendations to make changes for later. We parted ways and he was committed to making some of the changes I proposed to him.

A few weeks later, I checked up to see what changes were made, and he made a few!

Clean up Towels meant he did not have to go back and forth to the sink all the time to clean messes
Adding a little stand to keep the paint on really made his job so much easier without making a radical change.
Dave added some shelves to hold his paint cans and gloves to make clean up less of an issue while reducing flexion on his lower back
I donated one of my chairs to Dave that I wasn’t using. it was a major improvement to comfort and mobility for him.
His updated workspace

Dave ended up removing one of the tables as he found he didn’t need it anymore. this gave him substantially more room to work with and it worked for him and his constraints to make him happy.

Takeaways

Some things to take away from this is that you may be an expert and you can push for all these changes to a workspace and postural dynamics and things, but what counts is what does this mean for the client? how does it reduce the stress on your client and make their work more enjoyable? For me, it was knowing that some of these changes will put less stress on Dave meaning he can spend more time channeling his energies to his work and not his sore back and body.

Another thing is that these ergonomic assessments can be a little bit of an art form itself. It takes some creativity to come up with a solution, and some things you can’t change with the circumstances so you have to help them live with it.

Last I heard, he is now teaching art to students at colleges. I like to believe that I was a part of his success in his path but who knows? As long as I can help people make their lives easier, i’m happy with that.

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