It started as a blank white space. Intimidating, even for a pair of professional artists. Nearly two months later, however, that space has become a home. From July 1 to August 23, Sarasota residents Nora Jane Long, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and Anne Elhajoui, an award-winning designer who works as the art director at Dogs Inc have called the Gaze Gallery at the ARCOS Apartments their home studio. The two artists, who’d known each other for just over a year, were in the midst of the Creative Liberties’ Summer Residency, with a closing reception set for August 23. Those interested in seeing the work, however, don’t need to wait until August 23—onlookers were welcome to pop into the shared studio space during regular business to digest the two bodies of work and engage Long and Elhajoui on their respective artistic processes.  “Nora was going to be in this space with someone else who ended up dropping out and she asked me if I wanted to join her,” says Elhajoui. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I would love this.’ It’s kind of the dream to have a studio to go to with all of your supplies there and that it’s right on the street. People come in and talk to us while we create, which is just the greatest experience. I’m going to be quite sad when it’s over.” For Long, who has spent the beginning of her career as a filmmaker, primarily working in documentary, the residency has been an opportunity to kick start a body of work that is more visual, delving into paintings, poetry and even collage. “When we received the space, which is a 600 square foot room, it was empty with big, white walls, which was very intimidating to me as a newer artist in regards to having visual art in a two-dimensional form,” she says. “As a newer, emerging artist, as I was very inspired by Anne—she’s worked in a lot of different mediums, she has art on the walls that is made out of sand, she has collages and she has paintings, but it all feels very cohesive.” Long and Elhajoui have fed off each other’s creativity. The pair sat facing each other to promote communication as they worked in their respective mediums—Elhajoui on a collage series mounted on canvases Long thrifted and Long on poetry, oil paintings and a collage series of her own, made largely from watercolor scrap paper she inherited from her grandfather-in-law. “The cool thing about Creative Liberties is that they give us creative liberties. We could’ve split, where one half of the room is my work and the other is Nora’s, but we decided to integrate from day one,” says Elhajoui. “We can easily interact and see what the other is doing, which is inspiring. Then we just put pieces up on the wall as we finish them and people come in to check them out.”