studiousness

I have been lucky enough to have a room of my own for much of my life, but I have never had a studio of my own. Not unless you include the bedroom I had as a teenager.

[where I bought my craft supplies: Stockport Market with now-demolished cooling tower, 1970s]

It had been rented out as a bedsit to a lovely Manchester University PhD student who impressed me by making her own clothes and by bringing home from the lab the ingredients for me to make stink bombs (so successful and so utterly disgusting, I made myself sick). So my room had a Baby Belling oven, a sink, a gas fire, and an old card table, which meant I could shut myself up in there and make candles and leather belts, tie-dye T-shirts, sew smock-tops, grow herbs in indoor plants, spray pasta collages gold, and do endless amounts of macramé. My Mum rarely came in; as a single parent to four children, she had other priorities (although I do wonder how she tolerated some of the more flammable, dye- and soil-related activities).

[The Studio Interior (1914) by William Whitehead Ratcliffe]

I’d still love to have a proper studio; I sometimes dream of cycling off to a cleverly adapted building like the Custard Factory in Birmingham, full of period detail and creative people, where every studio would be warm, dry, well-lit, and cheap (and, preferably, with a kettle and a Brown Betty teapot). But the reality is different; Cambridge is short of studios, and I know full well that the majority are far from warm, dry, well-lit etc, and certainly not cheap.

[smocking and listening to France Culture on Proust]

So I do what I have always done, and I make and craft at home. I no longer do concentrated craft in a lime-green and purple bedroom with walls covered from top to bottom in fashion pages from Honey and Petticoat and posters from Biba. These days I have a working space at the end of our long living room. It’s definitely not a studio, even though I have just signed up for this year’s Cambridge Open Studios (all sorts of spaces are classed as ‘studios’). And, as I don’t go mad any more with spray cans, fill buckets with dye, or pot up herbs indoors, it works fine with dry ingredients, so to speak, such as paper, card, fabric and threads.

[St Paul’s Studios]

Like many people, I am fascinated by artists’ and makers’ studios. For years, on our way into London we drove past the fantastic Arts & Crafts St Paul’s Studios (1891) by Barons Court station; every time I said I’d love one of the studios, and every time everyone in the car did an eye-roll. You have the horribly noisy, busy A4 at the front and the above-ground Tube line at the back, but the studios are amazing - thank Google you can now have a look inside (I honestly thought that one day I’d have to pretend I wanted to buy one just to see inside). After reading the fascinating The Holland Park Circle by Caroline Dakers, I did go for a walk along Melbury Road to gawp at the enormous studio-houses, now worth bazillions, built by some of the most famous late Victorian establishment/society artists and sculptors who probably sold their artistic souls to the devil in order to earn enough to build such piles.

[David Hockney in his studio]

Nowadays, I covet those of Grayson Perry (without the cat), David Hockney (in blossomy Normandy), and Duncan Grant (would need better heating), but the person whose studio style I would emulate, down to the artistic slouching, would be Matisse.

Large, high ceiling, bookcase, Art Nouveau mantelpiece, mimosa and champagne bottle on the desk.

Same studio, now with a squishy armchair, pot plants, flowers everywhere.

Swiss cheese plant, tiled stove, better wall art than Honey fashion pics, and a place to put your feet up.

[riso print]

I’ve been to the LCBA this week which is a lovely, big studio with every piece of letterpress and bookbinding equipment you could ever need. I had my first independent session on a risograph and enjoyed experimenting with a mixture of nervousness and neon pink ink. I can see why riso printing is so popular; it’s like being let loose in the school staff room with the photocopier and Banda machine at the same time. It’s fast, colourful, easy and, as with all media, no matter how cheap and simple, in the right hands it can be used to great effect.

We Are Out Of Office produce a large range of great riso prints of bright food packaging from around the world, and also know how to use neon pink. I bought this print in The Old School Gallery in Alnmouth (a good example of reuse of an old building, in this case a Victorian school).

Finally, an addition to the milk bottle collection. At the Photographers Gallery where we went to see the superb Chris Killip retrospective, I came across this photograph:

[Untitled (Milk Bottle in Sink), 1923, by Margaret Wilkins]

with this label:

Well, knock me down with a feather. I realise I’d totally missed the erotic overtones and sexual politics of the milk bottle. Must try harder.

Happy Sunday!