A workshop, studio, atelier, foundry, garden retreat… from a corner of your bedroom, to a yard shed or rambling, sun-lit studio. To have a sacred place to call your own is a necessity to us all today.

My workshop, namely The Pump House (more on why later), is definitely that place.  I’m incredibly lucky to have such a beautiful space to work in, but where creativity is allowed to bound free, the amount of room at your disposal is not significant. A studio is a visual thesis of expression: with all you need in your own little haven to go create, without judgement or guidance. 

As writer Joseph Campbell said, “You must have a room or a certain hour of the day or so, where you do not know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody or what they owe you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be.”

I’ve always been drawn to these creative nooks and spaces, which are so personal to the artist, crafter, painter, seamstress, designer or architect… Those spaces and all that’s contained within them become a living diary of that person’s nuances.

At University I could have spent days touring the degree show spaces. I loved watching those modest chipboard boxes come alive; lovingly painted white to create this rubix cube of blank canvasses which, over the course of a few days of dressing, became an oasis of painted canvasses, framed photography, mixed media collages, hand-drawn 3-D design, frantic sketchbooks literally bursting with ideas… It was almost the late 90s version of snooping on someone’s social media account!

In my places of work it was no different… As an account manager for a creative agency I would spend more time loitering in the studio working with the designers to sketch out ideas, than sitting at a desk paper pushing for clients. When I was a marketer for a house builder I found the architect’s office full of drawings and renders spilling off drawing boards totally compelling and when my other half and I set about opening our own farm shop – followed swiftly by a pub/restaurant – it was the interiors and details that captivated me most, building mood-boards and tangible ideas on the kitchen table at home. 

“I feel so strongly that the only art is the art of the artist personally.” – Eva Hesse 

So, on to my own space and, as promised, a tour.  But I’m afraid I hate the sound of my own voice (too monotone), so this is safely pictorial!

Let’s be honest, it’s such an appealing place I would very happily live in it (some weeks I would just need a pillow in order to virtually achieve that status anyway). It’s a late Victorian/early Edwardian outbuilding and judging by the beautiful former stables converted to a house next door and the detailing on the barns to the farm beyond that, I’m going to throw it out there that they knew what they were doing at the turn of the century when it came to giving non-humans kick-arse accommodation! The building houses a pump (the building name is a bit of a spoiler) which distributes spring water from the well – also underneath that room – to neighbouring houses and the nearby farm. That’s all housed under the large workbench (see above), taking up a good proportion of the space. Previously (criminally so), The Pump House was a neglected dumping ground; stacked high with rusty-lidded paint tins, cracked garden pots, leftover bricks, slabs and tiles and the largest ready-made bug hotel you ever did see.

I’ll digress and be straight with you – if you’re not into spiders and woodlice don’t bother popping by for a brew.  Despite frequent cleaning, the spider and louse population of Northamptonshire still happily resides inside. Owing to slight Buddhist tendencies I cannot hoover up scampering spiders and if I do in error, you’ll find my immediate expression as they shoot up the tube unwittingly is similar to the gritted-teeth emoji, followed swiftly by a mini prayer in the hope they remain unharmed – unlikely once trapped forever more in Henry the hoover’s expansive tummy…

Beyond TLC I didn’t have to invest much in The Pump House to make it a workable space.  One skip, a lovely kitchen unit (one we’d pulled out of a house years before and kept) repurposed, an unwanted Belfast sink that was sitting abandoned (and miraculously uncracked) in a field, the battered but functioning wood burner from our living room, some flooring and a whole lot of licks of blue paint later and I feel I’ve hopefully given The Pump House a bit of a rebirth.  I don’t need half as much room as it affords me, but to have it come alive a few times a week feels like I’m doing some justice to a building which was formally sitting half pretty…

You’ll find old washing baskets and wine crates full of driftwood I’ve scavenged (and with the kind help of family and friends, who now automatically arrive back from a trip to the beach proffering a bag of suggested treasures), which is seasoned and dried in a lackadaisical colour and size order (the larger pieces are all kept in the lean-to next door).  I often have flower stems and bunches of herbs hanging up drying – some out of necessity, readying themselves for orders, others for purely experimental purposes!

I have hoarded heaps of salty shells, wave-worn glass and the odd coastal fossil and The Trinket Tray, where I plonk anything I think might give a future piece a little pizzazz – hand-painted tiles, antique brooches and unwanted costume jewellery, thimbles, strings of beads or old brass door knobs…

My daughter loves my tall tidy unit, punctuated by countless coloured drawers – unlabelled and therefore an enticing mystery behind each. I seem to know the order by heart now and her spongy toddler brain is fast behind my faltering middle-aged one! From quartz points, wooden lolly-pop sticks, brass bells and decorative door hinges, to glass apothecary jars, bobbins and fairy light strings…

All the materials I regularly use are boxed and labelled on the workbench top. And don’t be deceived by the photos. I’m a bit of a homely-style neat freak at home, but if I’m working on a piece this workshop is more often than not a shameful disaster zone – Jackson Pollock eat your heart out!  I’ve always thought his studio looked like something out of The Borrowers, but when I get into the swing of a project you might need waders to get through the door. 

Frenzied tangles of wool, ribbon and yarn, jigsaw-worthy off-casts of birch bark littering the floor, portions of moss and lichen caught in the web woven by a busy glue gun… I believe this is what is known as discipline versus freedom and order versus chaos!

Everyone has a process. Mine is and always has been highlighted by procrastination … even when time is precious. For my college degree show I created a portfolio of street photography – based on unveiling the magic of the mundane ‘every-day’, which we often overlook as just that.  Back then we shot on film (not cheap), but I categorically could not get any material you’d deem even half decent unless I went out and clicked my way through at least 50 frames and settled into some sort of unseen/uncaring presence on the pavement first.

Now, I make a cup of tea, I stick Radio 1 on (at 43, I’m still in denial and not quite ready for the dulcet tones of Jeremy Vine or Mishal Husain – not offence to either – it’s the woman-baby in me), perch on my stool and usually waste an hour. It’s a bit like the warm up before a distance run (… a thing of distant memory), but once I’m off time runs away with me and then I clock watch, desperate to reach a pre-determined goal for the day.

And over the non-creative medley of hip-hop, toilet humour and broadcasters ringing people around the globe to shout “up yours Corona” in their native language (I enjoyed that silly but united feature) what else do I hear?  The comforting hum of the pump kicking in by my feet is a regular, welcomed white noise – often interrupted by the piercing calls of the Simmental bulls next door, desperate to rekindle some pasture romance! And I once had a romantic notion that my older dog might like to escape the craziness at home and curl up on a rug snoozing, but his sudden territorial terrier barks – which would often send a jolted splodge of hot glue searing through my skin -soon rendered him back to the craziness at home. You had your chance Boggart. BTW he’s not fearful or evil, he’s rather lovely, and was named before J.K. Rowling took his name in vain!

It smells much like a woodland floor inside, which I love! There is no place I find more magical than a forest – enchanting shafts of light peeking through sheltered canopies, leaves and branches making their own wind-chime tunes, the smell of soil, bark and vegetation… The Pump House is cool in the summer and cosy in the winter and punctuated by the smell of seasoned wood, hints of the beach, moss and lichen.  During lockdown, I didn’t get an opportunity to work in there for weeks, so would try to steal a minute to stick my head in and inhale that familiar, cathartic scent of my escape hole!

In another life (before bubbles of a less fantastical sort) I would open my workshop up regularly and have “Drop By & Buy” evenings, with candles lit, a glass of something thrust into eager hands, chatter and laughter aplenty…  It was a relaxed way to give locals a chance to browse and buy – often pieces that I had previously worked up as samples at reduced prices.  Whilst I can’t do that at the moment, I’ll be putting a sample sale together online in due course, so keep those eyes peeled. And in the meantime, pictures and words will have to do.

In a world of editing what viewers see on social media, a glimpse behind the scenes of a studio or workshop is an enticing glimpse into the real world – you remember the one?!