From the studio
I’ve made my work in a variety of spaces over the last few years. Artists often depend upon a sense of retreat: the studio bolt-hole, with its rituals of tea and biscuits, the correct music, endless shuffling of papers and a quiet separation from the outside world. We make lists and notes, flip through sketchbooks and abandoned studies, scheme and plan the images we want to forge with pencil and brush, all the while apparently isolated from daily humdrum. 8pm to 2am tends to work best, ideally just before a deadline, and after an entire day of procrastination. On artist residencies, I’ve worked in both a remote cottage on a clifftop, and in a swaying, architect-designed treehouse in Glen Nevis.
My first proper studio space was in a sauna-hot room in an empty school building - even at the height of summer the massive exposed pipes continued to rage. Nonetheless, it was great to have a simple space and turn it into a place with a sole purpose.
Not long after that, I relocated to a freezing stables complex that had been converted into a series of art studios. Sitting in a studio making marks on a piece of paper sometimes feels like a ridiculous and abstract way to spend time, so it was good to know other artists were at work nearby; a ceramicist next door, a street-artist-turned-commercial opposite, a gifted oil painter over in the corner. The hour-long each way bike ride along a bumpy canal towpath quickly became a barrier to motivation, and driving wasn’t much quicker, but there was heaps of space to line the walls with recently completed commissions.
A few years later, I relocated, and found a great studio surrounded by other artists, here in East Oxford. Really, all I need is a desk space and a bright light, but I like to surround the space with essential images (postcards, photographs, sketches), books and objects. I seem to hoard mechanical pencils of all kinds, despite sticking to using only two or three of them for every drawing made in the last twenty years.
Currently, I’m working out of a studio space in our home, in conjunction with being a member of the Oxford Printmakers’ Co-Operative, which gives me access to their wonderful workshop. I go there when I need to play around with acids and use the etching presses, but otherwise I undertake all the drawing phases of the etchings in the studio at home, where I also make all of my graphite drawings. In recent years, conditions in the studio have been massively improved by the presence of Badger, the dog. She is the ultimate foot-warmer.
Right now I’m weighing up a return to a communal artist studio workplace, but there’s so much to be said for being able to drop into a work-in-progress for even a few minutes, just on a whim.
The soundtrack to the drawings has remained pretty consistent over the years: Boards of Canada; Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack for The Thin Red Line; a lot of Roni Size, Goldie, and LTJ Bukem; Pearl Jam/Audioslave/Soundgarden et al; BBC 6Music; Kermode & Mayo’s film review podcast. Sometimes there’s a film on in the background, which is mainly listened to rather than watched (heavy repeats include Blade Runner, Lawrence of Arabia, Terrence Malick stuff). While working on the centrepiece drawing for my upcoming exhibition, I listened to both series of Jon Ronson’s Things Fell Apart podcast and was astonished by his discoveries and connections. I know a drawing is going really well when I don’t notice I’ve been working in silence.
My exhibition, COAST, opens next weekend here in Oxford, and I hope you can join me. On the Friday evening we’re open from 6pm, and on Saturday and Sunday I’ll be there 11-5. Grab a coffee from Missing Bean Roastery next door and come along!
Before next weekend, I’ll send out the list of works available, for those of you who can’t make it. There will be a range of affordable photographs, editioned prints (framed and unframed), and original drawings on show.
